There are 20 of them and they come from Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Poland. All of them have been on trial since Monday before the Bordeaux criminal court for having been part of a potential international network for the importation of counterfeit cigarettes from Slovenia.
The trial is scheduled to last all week, with the indictment scheduled for Thursday. And the defendants, eight of whom were missing on the first day of the hearing, face ten years of imprisonment. They appear free, with the exception of one of them.
An “organized” and “hierarchical” network
Traffickers are said to have smuggled 77 tonnes of counterfeit cigarettes (or four million packs) in 2020, between October and December alone. They are said to have supplied several French cities with cigarettes, notably imitating the Marlboro brand, with a margin estimated at 20 million euros by the manufacturer Philip Morris, who has filed a civil suit. Purchased for around 13 euros, the cartridge of ten packets was resold for twice as much by the criminals, or around a quarter of the selling price at the time on the French market.
From sponsors to resellers, including suppliers, transporters and people responsible for laundering the money earned, the investigation revealed an “organized” and “hierarchical” network, according to the prosecution. This network, “particularly mobile” according to the prosecution, thus fueled cigarette trafficking in Nantes, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Béziers.
“Never had cigarettes in hand”
During a first operation in April 2021 focused on wholesale resellers in several locations across the country, seven people were arrested and five tonnes of cigarettes seized. The investigations carried out under the aegis of the specialized interregional jurisdiction (Jirs) of Bordeaux and entrusted to the Loire-Atlantique gendarmes then made it possible to trace the production sites, “sheltered in discreet hangars located in remote locations” in Slovenia, according to the prosecution. In coordination with the Slovenian judicial authorities, new searches and arrests took place in the Maribor region in January 2022. They led to the seizure of more than 26 tonnes of raw tobacco, 29 million cigarette filters as well as several manufacturing machines. .
During his appearance at the bar on Monday, one of the twenty defendants claimed to have “never had cigarettes in hand”, only admitting, as in his previous statements, to having served as a driver.