The Hambli affair, named after this major drug trafficker recruited as a source by the Central Office for Combating Illicit Drug Trafficking (OCRTIS), has just witnessed one of the first legal developments that benefited its former director, François Thierry. He was charged with complicity in drug trafficking in August 2017 and has since repeatedly claimed that he never protected the illegal trade of his informant, whose sole job was to ensure the logistics of transporting cannabis from Morocco to France on behalf of Moufide Bouchibi. another human trafficker that OCRTIS wanted to take down.

On December 12, the Bordeaux public prosecutor’s office dismissed François Thierry and requested that the case against him be dropped. In September 2022, the Lyon judges, who were dealing with a different part of the case, interpreted the investigative methods of the former head of the anti-narcotics operation differently and decided to refer him to a jury on charges of public falsification and destruction of evidence.

François Thierry, as part of the investigation against him, sought to explain the police strategy called “Myrmidon”, initiated in 2010 by OCRTIS and which consists of: “to identify the flow of goods destined for the national territory as early as possible in order to monitor and question their progress as closely as possible.” (…) Sponsors after receiving their products through targeted recruitment of human resources engaged in the logistics activity of human trafficking in Morocco, Spain and France.”.

“A golden spring”

According to François Thierry’s own account, Philippe Veroni’s hierarchical superior was Sophiane Hambli “a golden spring”. According to the OCRTIS count, this was the case when the affair broke out “Golden Spring” had allowed the seizure of more than “60 tons of cannabis, the identification of several dozen experienced criminals, the solving of a dozen settlements and more than a hundred arrests.” By collaborating with a drug trafficker of this type, has OCRTIS compromised itself to the extent that it became involved in the importation of narcotics onto French soil for the benefit of its informant?

When assessing the information provided to judicial authorities during deliveries monitored by their service “lacunar” by the Bordeau public prosecutor’s office – a path for François Thierry “unilaterally maintain the choice of investigative strategy and the appropriateness of prosecution, which do not fall within its scope of responsibility” – the prosecution states that the “The framework in force at the relevant time did not require this,” What “represented a fragility of the system in determining the responsible judicial authority”. According to her, the former head of OCRTIS cannot therefore be prosecuted “Complicity through abstention, the presence of an escalation of narcotics use has at least been reported before”.

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