A man, aged 29, was sentenced Tuesday evening by the Nîmes criminal court.
He confessed to three journeys in January and February 2021. This Spaniard, who lives near the border, was arrested by customs who meticulously searched his vehicle checked at the Vergèze rest area in the direction of return, in the direction from Perpignan. It is 1:30 p.m. on February 21, 2021, when 13,000 euros are discovered in a cache located under the back seat.
Money laundering for the benefit of drug traffickers in the south of France was quickly suspected, especially since the accused made trips to several cities during the day. Montpellier-Nîmes-Avignon, also sometimes stopping near Pontet in Vaucluse or Sète, before leaving for Spain where he gives someone the money from the traffic. The suspect arrested and placed in police custody will confess to his participation, but he will not give any name allowing him to trace his possible sponsors or those responsible. He will deliver two unverifiable nicknames, “RS4” and “Mohamed the Swiss”. With so little information, it is difficult for investigators to trace the chain and find out what happened to the money collected.
“He accepted this convoy of money from drug trafficking in return for payment. There were traces of drugs on the seized banknotes“, underline customs.”Attacking the trafficking that is rampant in the neighborhoods of Nîmes also means hitting the financial side“, insists the substitute prosecutor Estelle Meyer who is asking for three years, including two years with a simple suspended sentence and a ban from the territory for ten years.
The criminal court chaired by Jérôme Reynes went beyond the requisitions by sanctioning the “collector” with three years in prison, a sentence accompanied by an arrest warrant for the defendant who did not come to explain himself to the audience. The court also decided to confiscate the defendant’s property, money and car, and ban him from French territory for ten years.
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