Eleven new dangerous detainees linked to organized crime were transferred overnight on Tuesday, 29 to Wednesday, July 30, 2025 from various establishments in the South West to the first high security prison in Vendin-le-Vieil. Among them, a prisoner was extracted from the prison center of Perpignan under very high security.
Regional intervention and security teams (ERIS) over-equipped with tactical helmets, hoods and heavy pavement vests, GIGN workforce (elite group of the national gendarmerie) and the national police … A reinforced device was put in place in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday around 11:30 p.m. in order to transfer an detainee in the most dangerous narcotrafit. Perpignan to the very first Haute-Security penitentiary center.
The 30-year-old man from the Toulouse region is involved in several cases including a criminal file for murder in an organized gang and has already scoured several prison establishments from Charente to Aude, via Hérault, Landes, Haute-Garonne and finally the Pyrénées-Orientales.
Incarcerated for the first time in 2021 for participation in an association of criminals for the preparation of an offense, he had escaped. He had been resumed and he had returned behind bars. Then, in December 2022, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison in detention of a category A weapons deposit (war materials) and ammunition.
“This should not make us forget local reality”
The Perpignan prisoner therefore joined “the fortified place” of Pas-de-Calais. Just like, in the same night, 10 other detainees from the south west of France (Béziers, Toulouse-Seysses, Lannemezan …) announced this Wednesday the Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin, on his account X. “They are now incarcerated there under maximum security conditions “, he added. It is therefore 50 prisoners with a similar profile who have been under the locks in Vendin-le-Vieil since July 22.
“This ultra-secure transfer cannot hide local reality”, specifies however Pierre GROUSSET, UFAP UNSA justice delegate at the prison of Perpignan. “On June 5, the prison management was committed to transferring prisoners to other less saturated regions. On June 20, following a collective blocking of prisoners, the interregional director announced the transfer of two additional leaders. Result? None of the prisoners concerned left the establishment. And the remand center displays 253 % overcrowding in men and 236 % among women.”
