2024-01-07 19:30:01
Returned to the Bordeaux Criminal Court, as of this Monday, 20 people are suspected of having supplied several French cities with cigarettes produced in Slovenia, notably imitating the Marlboro brand, with a margin estimated at 20 million euros by the manufacturer Philip Morris , civil party.
Originally from Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and even Bosnia-Herzegovina, they must answer for the offense of fraudulently importing or selling tobacco in an organized gang and, for some, aggravated money laundering. They face 10 years of imprisonment as well as a fine of up to ten times the value of the fraud.
“We really have the lowest traffic”
For Marie-Caroline Blaise, lawyer for one of the defendants from Georgia, “the involvement of the protagonists has been exaggerated” and the trial must make it possible to “reestablish the truth”.
Nineteen of the twenty accused appear free. For Christian Blazy, who defends a father and his son born in Armenia, the suspects are “little hands”. “We really have the lowest traffic. And those who are at the top, naturally, do not come to France,” he argues, finding it “surprising” to see Philip Morris claiming civil party status.
According to the public prosecutor’s office in Bordeaux, in western France, the cigarettes were transported by truck from Slovenia before being stored in boxes in France. Bought for around €13, the cartridge was sold for twice as much by the criminals, or around a quarter of the selling price at the time on the French market.
This network, “particularly mobile” according to the prosecution, thus fueled cigarette trafficking in the cities of Nantes, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Béziers, in the west and south of France.
77 tonnes of imported cigarettes
“The investigation and the evidence collected make it possible to establish that trafficking allowed the smuggling of 77 tonnes of cigarettes between October and December 2020,” estimates the public prosecutor.
In April 2021, a first operation focused on wholesale resellers resulted in the arrest of seven individuals in France, leading to the first indictments before the specialized interregional jurisdiction (JIRS) of Bordeaux.
In coordination with the Slovenian judicial authorities, searches took place in January 2022 in several production sites in Slovenia, “sheltered in discreet hangars located in remote locations”, indicates the prosecution. They made it possible to seize more than 26 tonnes of raw tobacco, 29 million cigarette filters as well as several manufacturing machines.
“These volumes illustrate the extent of the smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes in Europe,” adds the prosecution. In 2022, French customs officers seized nearly 650 tonnes of contraband tobacco, an increase of almost 60% in one year.
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