His diving suit on his back and his bottle of nitrox in hand, Pierre-Michel Arcade comes out of the water. The squadron leader of the Franco-German fluvial gendarmerie company has just gone to check the final details of the exercise. Everything must be ready for 9 a.m. this Thursday morning at the Holtzheim gravel pit, near Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin).
This is where around fifty soldiers and police officers from France, Germany and Switzerland met for an extraordinary operation. “A first and a source of pride”, slips the officer, insisting on the cross-border dimension of the maneuver. “The objective is to get technicians not used to doing this to work together and who will have to give satisfaction to a director of investigation in the event of a crisis situation. »
The accomplices spotted!
Today’s is considered “plausible” but extremely rare in the area: the sinking of a nine-meter sailboat in the context of drug trafficking. Precisely, according to the chosen scenario, two men, “followed for several weeks”, indicated to their accomplices “at 4:12 am” that their boat – already buried in this diving spot – was sinking. “The Mayday Mayday message was picked up by all the posts”, specifies Pierre-Michel Arcade, perfectly in his role.
On the program for the morning, passage of sonar to identify where the boat sank, beaconing, before several divers intervened on site. All with surveillance from a drone and security and intervention teams “because there are fears of an underwater operation to recover the cargo and remove evidence”. Precisely, two men have just been spotted on the north bank of the gravel pit. They try to flee but are arrested, “and now auditioned”.
DNA samples under water
Meanwhile, divers from Baden-Württemberg are already hard at work at a depth of thirty meters. Just to check that the marker placed is in the right place. They are soon relayed by another duo, French this time, who came to “freeze the scene”. That is to say take pictures, as it could be practiced on land. In particular, they found two bodies (models eh!) and a handgun.
And now we take it all out and analyze it on the surface? No way. DNA and fingerprint samples are taken in water. “Because if we go up any object, the runoff can make the slightest trace disappear”, specifies an officer, cut off by a dull noise. A helicopter is coming! He flies over the area before dropping off one then two divers. Training question…
“Pablo Escobalt” arrested
Some elements will soon be extracted and then analyzed. The boat will remain at the bottom, not far from a small plane which has also emerged for the pleasures of amateur divers. But by the way, where are the narcotics? Cannabis resin was found on board the sailboat, not the bales of herbs. Normal, they were floating and were therefore spotted by the drone team.
The police now have enough evidence to go and arrest the man at the head of the network, a certain… “Pablo Escobalt”! “He will be arrested at his home,” promises Pierre-Michel Arcade, before heading to the barbecue. Another large-scale cross-border meeting.