After two years of investigation, the gendarmerie dismantled a trafficking in arms, narcotics and vehicles revolving around a family from Béziers (Hérault).
The gendarmerie dismantled a traffic in arms, narcotics and vehicles revolving around a family from Béziers (Hérault), carrying out twenty arrests and the seizure of property worth 1.3 million euros, the city prosecutor’s office said on Friday. Organized on Monday, after nearly two years of investigation, the arrest operation mobilized 280 soldiers, including members of the GIGN, the elite unit of the gendarmerie, explained in a press release the public prosecutor of Beziers, Raphael Balland.
Twenty people were arrested in Hérault (Béziers, Sète, Montpellier), Millau (Aveyron) and Vincennes, in the Paris region. Twenty others were heard in free hearings, according to the prosecutor. The searches led to the seizure of “16 long weapons, 18 handguns, numerous ammunition of all calibers, 300 g of cocaine, 540 cartons of contraband cigarettes and 77,000 euros in cash”, details the press release. Real estate and furniture, as well as bank accounts, were seized for a total value estimated at more than 1,300,000 euros, according to the same source.
16 people judged
At the end of their police custody, 16 people were presented to the three investigating judges in charge of the case and indicted. Fifteen of them were remanded in custody. A preliminary investigation, opened in July 2020, originally related to cocaine trafficking located in Montblanc, between Béziers and Agde.
The investigations then extended to facts of cigarette trafficking, scams, extortion, association of criminals and money laundering in an organized gang, the investigators suspecting the existence of a “structured organization” placed under the authority of “several members of an Armenian family residing in Béziers”, specifies the prosecutor.
This organization supplied narcotics and cigarettes to “the world of the night” and took care of obtaining and reselling weapons. She also practiced fraud by “reselling vehicles with odometers tampered with by three garages located in Vendre (Hérault) and Béziers”, indicates Mr. Balland, according to whom nearly 150 victims of these scams have been identified. The investigations are continuing in order in particular to exploit the elements seized during the searches, according to the prosecutor.