In its conclusions, made public in mid-May, the Senate commission of inquiry into drug trafficking spoke of a France “submerged” by drug trafficking, underlined the spread of the phenomenon towards “rural areas and medium-sized towns”and warned of the risk ” very high “ corruption of public officials. It is a summary of these findings that the trial which opens on Monday May 27 before the 13the criminal chamber of the Bobigny court.
Nineteen people are on trial until June 24 for the role they played within a vast network of traffickers based in Canteleu (Seine-Maritime), a town of 14,000 inhabitants bordering Rouen. Alongside experienced delinquents, two elected officials from the Republic: the former mayor (Socialist Party) of Canteleu, Mélanie Boulanger, 47, and her former deputy for economic development, Hasbi Colak, 41. Both have since left office but remain members of the municipal council.
The case began on September 25, 2019, 120 km from Canteleu, in a parking lot in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), with the arrest of two men in the middle of a drug transaction – 2 kg of cocaine and 50,000 euros in cash are seized. One of them, originally from Rouen, is linked to the Meziani family, which has ruled regional traffic from Canteleu for years. The car with which he went to the Saint-Denis parking lot is in the name of a restaurant in Canteleu, the “Show Kebab”, whose owner is a member of the municipal team: Hasbi Colak.
Comply with their demands
The person concerned’s telephone was tapped, and the troubled relations between this deputy and certain members of the Meziani family were brought to light: they seemed to exert a certain pressure on Hasbi Colak, asking him directly to obtain social housing or information on the police presence in town.
Over the course of the conversations, it appears that the deputy frequently plays the intermediary between the Meziani brothers and Mélanie Boulanger, mayor of Canteleu since 2014. Who sometimes seems guided by the desire not to alienate the traffickers, and shows herself more inclined to comply with their demands than to hinder their activity.
In December 2019, Hasbi Colak explained to Mélanie Boulanger that traffic leaders complained to him about not having been informed of the town hall’s installation of video surveillance cameras, but that he was able to calm things down. She replies that they can, in any case, “be reassured because she never gave a name to the DDSP [directeur départemental de la sécurité public] ».
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