Gang shooting leads to drug trafficking arrests

A police investigation into an attempted murder in an organised gang war, committed in August 2021, in Annonay, Ardèche, the gendarmes supported by soldiers of the Gendarmerie départementale de la Loire, carried out a major incident seizure of narcotics.

For the gendarmes of the Grenoble Research Section (S.R.), one case can hide another. On the night of August 22, 2021, in the heart of the city of La Croze, in Annonay, Ardèche, four hooded individuals opened fire on a vehicle. The driver and his two passengers miraculously escape unharmed. The responsiveness of the Gendarmerie allowed the arrest of one of the shooters as early as August 26.

The criminal pole of the Avignon judicial court opens a judicial investigation for attempted assassination in an organized gang, and entrusts the investigation directorate to the Grenoble Research Section and the gendarmerie départementale (GGD) de l’Ardèche, as part of a national investigation cell. A group of eight investigators is dedicated exclusively to the investigation.

On Tuesday, January 25, 2022, these investigations resulted in a vast judicial police operation, mobilizing 120 gendarmes from the Grenoble S.R., the GGDs of the Ardèche and Loire, the Orange GIGN branch, the Lyon Surveillance Group and several dog teams.

This operation leads to the arrest and detention of twelve people in Ardèche and the Loire. Three are indicted on the count of attempted organised gang murder and imprisoned. A fourth individual, on the run since April 2021, and who was the subject of an arrest warrant for acts of violence with weapons, resulting in an ITT of more than 8 days, was also imprisoned.

Drugs in the garage

This first case led to another. During the search carried out on Letter of Request in a garage located in Saint-Julien-Molin-Molette, in the Loire, the gendarmes of the Grenoble R.S.S., supported by soldiers of the Loire gendarmerie group, discovered various narcotics (nearly 36 kg of cannabis resin and grass, 4 kg of cocaine, 3.5 kg of metham A powerful luxury sedan was also seized, as criminal assets.

This incidental discovery was the subject of a separate flagrante procedure, initiated by the Saint-Étienne prosecutor’s office, which entrusted the continuation of the investigations to the S.R. of Grenoble, for the narcotics and money laundering part, and to the Saint-Étienne research brigade for the concealment part of stolen vehicles.

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The tenant who owned the garage, a 35-year-old individual, originally from Loiret and little known to the justice system, is arrested and taken into police custody on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering related to drug trafficking and concealment of stolen vehicles. At the end of the hearings, he was referred to the prosecutor’s office on Friday, January 28, 2022, indicted, and placed in pre-trial detention by decision of the judge of freedoms and detention.

He acknowledged serving as a nurse to traffickers, excluding any personal participation in trafficking, and recovering vehicles of questionable sources for the benefit of knowledge, to store them or repair them.

Since the accused refused to communicate the names of the co-authors, the investigation therefore continues on a Letter of Request from an investigating judge to try to identify the other people involved in this trafficking.

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