Pascal Payet: why was he imprisoned in a secret place?

Created in 2000, the show Let the accused enter traces in each episode of the major French criminal cases. Sunday November 20, 2022, in the one broadcast on RMC Story at 9:10 p.m., viewers will be able to rediscover the story of Pascal Payet. Former multi-recidivist robber stuck in organized crime, the 59-year-old man is particularly famous for his escapes from prisons in France. On October 12, 2001, two before his first incarceration, Pascal Payet had escaped with Frédéric Impocco from the Luynes remand center aboard a hijacked helicopter. A year and a half later, on April 14, 2003, he had organized the escape of Franck Perletto, Éric A and Michel V from the Luynes remand center, again by helicopter.

In January 2005, Pascal Payet was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment for voluntary homicide during the 1997 robbery in Salon-de-Provence. Two years later, he admitted having been the organizer of the 2003 escape. For this, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. The ex-robber was also sentenced to six years in prison for his own escape in 2001. However, Pascal Payet did not stay in prison for long again. On July 14, 2007, he escaped again by helicopter from the prison in Grasse, in the Alpes-Maritimes. He was, however, one of the most closely watched detainees in French prisons. Arrested two months later north of Barcelona, ​​Spain, he was transferred to France on October 4, 2007 before being imprisoned in a secret place for “security reasons“, but also to avoid another escape attempt.

A new conviction for Pascal Payet

Following his last escape, the Assize Court of Bouches-du-Rhône had him sentenced to five years in prison. Paul Botella, the director of the prison from which he escaped, lamented at the time: “I never imagined that doors could be sawn so easily!“If he managed to make himself beautiful twice, Pascal Payet has been behind bars for fifteen years.