Two men were indicted and placed in pre-trial detention on Sunday, after being apprehended in the village of Eaux-Chaudes (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), driving a vehicle containing 512 kg of cannabis resin, and two kilos of herbal cannabis, said the Rennes prosecutor’s office on Thursday. They were looking to go up to La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime).
A vast operation carried out jointly by the public prosecutor’s office of Pau, the judicial police of La Rochelle and the anti-narcotics office of the national police, was set up to lead to this seizure and these arrests.
Information from the Spanish authorities
It all started with information received a few days ago from the Spanish authorities, indicating that two vehicles were about to go up in convoy from Spain, towards La Rochelle. The convoy consisted of an opener vehicle, and another loaded with cannabis.
The Pau public prosecutor’s office immediately opened a preliminary investigation. “On October 12, a surveillance system was put in place, indicates Philippe Astruc, public prosecutor of Rennes. The opening vehicle, belonging to a Rochelais, was detected and shadowed by some of the police officers of the device. “The judicial police, for their part, put in place a device to intercept him on his arrival in La Rochelle, “but the two occupants of the vehicle managed to flee”.
Placed in pre-trial detention
On the side of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the vehicle “carrying narcotics, stolen and falsely registered”, was spotted the same day at 8:20 p.m., and its two occupants arrested at the level of the village of Eaux-Chaudes, in the town of Laruns in the valley of ‘Ossau, and taken into custody. They are two men living in the La Rochelle sector, of French nationality, and aged 28 and 25. The public prosecutor’s office in Pau then withdrew from the case, in favor of the JIRS (specialized interregional jurisdiction) of Rennes, competent in the La Rochelle sector, and which opened a criminal judicial investigation.
The two men, “known to the judicial institution”, were referred to the Rennes prosecutor’s office last Sunday. They were indicted on the counts of “recidivism of illicit importation into an organized gang of narcotic products, recidivism of drug trafficking, recidivism of participation in a criminal association with a view to committing a crime or misdemeanor and transportation and detention, smuggling of prohibited goods dangerous to health”.
They were placed in pre-trial detention by the judge of freedoms and detention in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution.