International drug trafficking from Roissy-en-Brie: trial set for October
Five defendants appeared before the Melun magistrates' court for a vast cocaine and cannabis trafficking operation. The judgement on the merits is scheduled for 21, 22 and 23 October.
International drug trafficking gang: five defendants awaiting trial in Melun
According to Google News LU — Crime (fr), five people appeared on Tuesday 25 August 2026 before the Melun magistrates' court to answer charges of alleged international drug trafficking. The judgement on the merits is scheduled for 21, 22 and 23 October next, before the same magistrates' chamber.
The municipality of Roissy-en-Brie, in Seine-et-Marne, allegedly served both as a branching point and base camp for a drug trafficking network which, over the course of 2024, allegedly extended across the whole of the Île-de-France region, with distribution channels reaching as far as Australia. The trafficking allegedly mainly involved cocaine and cannabis, and also included significant money laundering operations, particularly in the property market.
Months of investigation carried out by specialised judicial police services were necessary to dismantle this network. The charges, due to the presence of weapons, had initially been classified at criminal level before being reclassified to misdemeanour proceedings during the course of the procedure.
Three of the five defendants were in pre-trial detention for approximately thirty months at the time of the hearing. Two other suspects, including a woman, appeared in freedom, their involvement having been judged less serious. A sixth individual remains at large and is the subject of a search warrant that has so far been unsuccessful. The defendants are aged between thirty and fifty.
This hearing on 25 August followed a first appearance in July. When the three defendants of substantial build arrived in the dock, they required reinforced escort, as the glass cage proved too cramped to accommodate them. Each sought during these preliminary proceedings to obtain a relaxation of their judicial supervision ahead of the October trial.
"Nearly thirty months of prison is very long, and prison is hard," declared one of the detainees to the presiding judge. The other defendants in turn spoke of their regrets, their families, their children, as well as job promises, in particular from a cousin running a driving school in Seine-Saint-Denis.
The prosecutor was firm in his submissions. He recalled the scale of the trafficking, valued at between €477,000 and €780,000, and described the charges as "of the utmost gravity". The magistrate underlined that the investigation had required eleven months of wiretapping and telephone surveillance of the network. He also mentioned the discovery, during a search at one of the defendants' homes, of a Sig Sauer automatic pistol of police origin accompanied by ammunition.
Kept under judicial supervision, the five defendants will have the opportunity to explain themselves further regarding the charges against them at the full hearing in October.
Source: Google News LU — Crime (fr)