These two commissioners, heads of the OFAST in Marseille, have been kept in police custody since Monday morning in the premises of the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), “the police of police”, as part of a judicial information in the hands of the national jurisdiction against organized crime (Junalco), we learned from a source close to the file, confirming information from the Parisian.
Solicited by AFP, the lawyer for one of them did not wish to comment.
The initial investigations, parties of anonymous information in February 2023, focused on an arrival of cocaine at the port of Marseille in container from Colombia and bound for the Paris region.
The specialized interregional court (JIRS) of Marseille, initially seized, had entrusted the investigations in this dossier nicknamed “Trident” to the OFAST.
“As part of this investigation, it had been agreed to monitor the arrival of a cargo from 180 to 200 kg of cocaine but it turned out that this delivery allowed the entry into the territory of almost 400 kg of cocaine”according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
According to the same source, “Faced with the difference between the information received and noted, the OFAST Nanterre had disengaged from operations” et “Several actors in the file were also surprised by the difficulty with which these narcotics were sold in Marseille, suggesting that police surveillance was possible.”
The initial survey had been closed in January 2024, without arrest.
But also in January 2024, IGPN “had been seized internally of suspicions weighing on the conditions of this import”.
Searches were made in April 2024 in the premises of the antenna of the Marseille OFAST.
“Concealment”
In September, the Junalco resumed the investigation, in the divestment of the Marseille prosecutor’s office, then entrusted the investigations to investigating judges on November 27, relating in particular to the offenses of importance of narcotics in organized gang, whitening, corruption or even association of criminals.
The survey has notably updated, according to the public prosecutor, as possible “Exchanges between police officers and other people, relating to the sale of at least 360 kg of cocaine, apart from any hierarchical control, and on the concealment of the real quantities arrived in the territory” During this monitored delivery.
Solicited on Monday, the Paris and Junalco prosecutor’s office did not comment immediately.
In February, two people, Indics according to the Parisian, were first indicted and then imprisoned.
Two police officers from the Marseille OFast were then indicted in early April, at least one of which had been placed in pre -trial detention.
A third, a captain of the 45-year-old OFast, was indicted in turn in mid-June.
Not a first
This is not the first time that the high police officers have been implicated for potential drifts related to the management of indications, often in connection with narcotic files.
François Thierry, former boss of the Ocrtis, ancestor of the OFAST, was acquitted in September in Lyon after having been implicated for organizing the placement in police custody in 2012 of his informant, a large drug trafficker, Sophiane Hambli, with the sole purpose of extracting him from prison to manage a supervised delivery.
The Rhône criminal court considered that the measure was “irregular” But that she had been carried out “In agreement” with the public prosecutor, and that François Thierry had not “fraudulent intention”.
Mr. Thierry must still be tried in Bordeaux for “complicity in drug trafficking”, in a related folder, still linked to Sophiane Hambli.
Michel Neyret, ex-Numéro 2 of the PJ Lyonnaise, was sentenced on appeal in 2018 in Paris to two and a half years in prison for corruption, found guilty of having informed “Indics” of the Lyon community, in exchange for advantages.
