Nearly 9 tonnes of cocaine, 3.9 tonnes of cannabis resin, 50 kilos of synthetic drugs, 40 kilos of heroin, 86 weapons, 24 vehicles, 1.4 million euros seized – and 345 people arrested. This is not the result of the dozens of “Clean Square” operations desired by the President of the Republic and put to music – and in images – by his Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, but the result of the activity of the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) for the month of February alone, recorded in a confidential note including The world was able to become aware.
Soberly titled “Significant cases”, this seven-page document distributed as part of the national plan to combat drugs only lists the main cases handled by Ofast with the assistance of local judicial police services and, sometimes, that of the national navy. Interception of a “go fast”, two maritime deliveries, dismantling of a “international traffic transiting through France” : implicitly, it reveals the scale of a phenomenon of which it is difficult to see how the “Place Net” operations, mobilizing hundreds of police officers in sensitive neighborhoods, could, alone, overcome.
“This work complements the essential work of these large-scale operations that we carry out on a daily basis”, assures a source at the Ministry of the Interior. Above all, it testifies to the necessity and effectiveness of shadow investigations, far removed from the live broadcast of demonstrations of force against the deal points, a work in the dark punctuated by eavesdropping, shadowing, surveillance, which involves small teams of specialized investigators and months of careful cross-checking on the “top of the spectrum”these drug importation networks from Spain, the Netherlands, the Antilles, destined for the Bacalan district, in Bordeaux, Montfermeil (Seine-Saint-Denis), or Hyères (Var).
Proven methods
An approach “essential in the fight against organized crime and particularly drug trafficking”insisted in a press release the National Association of Judicial Police, which continues to denounce police reform and “focusing public action on petty crime [qui] pushes for the absorption of small criminal groups by larger, better structured and more resilient organizations”.
Reading the document provides information on the validity of proven methods in the hunt for traffickers, the importance of informants, the compartmentalization of information, and the responsiveness of specialized services. During the month of January, the interdepartmental judicial police service of Haute-Savoie received a “tip”: a rather talkative resident of Chambéry boasted of carrying out “drug transport” between Spain and Savoy. A truck is quickly identified and placed under discreet surveillance.
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