“When you hit a dealer, there are ten behind you”: in Sète, the in-depth fight against drug trafficking on the island of Thau
|En 2020, les épisodes se sont multipliés à l’île de Thau, comme ce 3 décembre 2020, avec un blessé. – M. C.
L’ex-ZUP du Barrou, à Sète, est toujours en proie au trafic de stupéfiants. La lutte contre de puissants réseaux passe par une action de chaque instant à plusieurs niveaux.
The island of Thau remains today one of the strongholds of drug trafficking in Hérault. Yet it is held in a pocket handkerchief. Two or three deal points share the space of barely a few streets and corners poorly designed in the 70s: Place de la Seinchole, at the entrance to the Globe, or near the ;former shopping center, regularly coveted by rival traffickers from the city center of Sète.
The figures are now perfectly known. A single point can earn up to 15,000 € per day. They are called ovens. Organized as companies that sell cannabis, mainly cocaine, at an almost industrial rate. Under the noses of residents caught between resignation and fear of a stray bullet.
"We need to put together solid cases (…) to make a police truth, a judicial truth"
Every morning, around fifteen people are hired. The lookouts, paid 120 € per day, not including accommodation costs. They are often minors who come from other departments to more easily escape justice in the event of a raid. The resellers (“charboneurs”) receive a little more, as do those responsible for the stock replenished several times a day in sports bags. Each “team” uses cars, even nursery apartments to store goods and weapons. Even to take refuge there in the event of an external attack. Sometimes, the inhabitants are placed under control or bribed into their homes to act as nannies.
It is no longer rare at all for powder to speak. Bullets even go through bedroom walls. Since 2020, tensions between rivals on the island of Thau and the city center have resumed, with their procession of violence. Even causing one death on April 24, 2020.
A dedicated narcotics group
Faced with the scourge of traffic, a collective of residents is trying to make things happen. City, prefecture, national and municipal police, town planning department, social landlords, are mobilized during coordinated and regular operations in the neighborhood, in the spirit of “net squares” deployed in Montpellier and Béziers recently. The CRS are sometimes called in as reinforcements as part of large-scale judicial operations. But the fight against drug trafficking networks which sell to the island of Thau circulate weapons of war and launder money abroad, requiring in-depth investigative work. This is what the head of the district police station, Robert Saby, established.
In-depth work and tireless commitment
Since 2020, he has been working to decipher and trace the tracks back to the sponsors, who are particularly organized and protected in the neighborhood. Long-term, methodical work with a group of six specialized local police officers (Unit for the fight against narcotics and the underground economy)."From the start, we already had all the names, but we only did small flagrant offenses with a few seizures. To stop these networks which operate from Morocco, to clean up the deal points, we must put together solid files, open what we call judicial information which provides more means of investigation over time, to make a police truth a judicial truth", explains the commissioner.
When a place becomes available, the competitors are on the lookout to grab it at all costs
The group of fine sleuths from Sète, solid knowledge of the field and tirelessly committed, trained themselves in cutting-edge investigation techniques: eavesdropping, shadowing, financial movements, etc. This is how a case of domestic violence with a weapon recorded in December 2019 led to a major trafficking and money laundering case in September 2022. Thirty defendants were tried in Montpellier. The court thus distributed a total of 50 years in prison.
First and foremost, “Escalope”, considered the head of the Seinchole oven at the time and his right arm “Samolo”, respectively sentenced to 6 and 5 years. As nature abhors a vacuum, when a place becomes available, competitors are on the lookout to grab it at all costs. "We still maintain control of the situation which remains on a human scale thanks to the constant work of the stup group, otherwise the war would be lost", affirms Commissioner Saby. Who specifies: "A business is not built in a month, it’s complex, it takes time".
Undersized Medium
And the resources at the service of judicial investigations in Sète are clearly undersized, as the SGP police FO Unit union has continued to repeat for years. "We would need around fifteen more police officers to secure the public highway and carry out investigations behind it, the two go hand in hand", estimates Fabrice Aebi, deputy departmental secretary, who pleads for the return of a sector police station. Today, are tensions easing ? "When you hit a dealer, there are ten behind you. Their brothers are reorganizing. The situation is under control but we must never release the pressure, it's a complicated, never-ending struggle."
The latest trial saw the conviction of 12 years in prison and 200,000 € fine from a local traffic figure called “Fock Fock”. This boss is suspected of having recovered Seinchole, following ’“Escalope”, by organizing an even more lucrative traffic. Still on the run, he is said to be making millions. His two lieutenants, “Nounours” and “La Tige”, received 8 years.
I subscribe to read more