- In Seine-Saint-Denis, drug trafficking has dropped since the implementation of containment measures.
- Specialized investigators nevertheless note a change in this traffic.
- Restrictions on movement around the world are straining supplies.
For the past few days, a question has been bothering Aurélien. How to restock? "I still have enough to hold, three or four days, maybe a little more if I limit my consumption but it is certain that during the week, I will be dry", alarms this thirty-something Parisian by making an inventory of what remains to him: a pouch started with grass and a "small" bar of shit. The day after the presidential announcements on containment, he had nevertheless taken the lead and called his dealer. A few hours later, he was delivered to the bottom of his building. "Macron had announced two weeks of confinement, I told myself that I was going to take a little more but I did not anticipate that I would smoke more than usual. Seeing his reserves dwindle, he tried to place a new order. End of inadmissibility: with the coronavirus crisis, its delivery company suspended its activity. Too risky. From now on, he is thinking of defying confinement and crossing the periphery to go and buy "what to hold".
In the capital as well as in the northern suburbs where Aurélien intends to go, drug trafficking has experienced a serious brake on the last three weeks. Would containment measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus have succeeded where "stupid plans" failed? "When everyone is supposed to stay at home and the police checks are reinforced to ensure that it is the case, it does not really help the dealers," smiles a senior officer in post in Seine-Saint -Denis. In this department, considered as one of the hubs of drug trafficking in Ile-de-France, the biggest deal points are now idling. "It still frogs a little, we regularly call the same person three or four times a day in a territory that corresponds to points of sale but that has nothing to do with usual," says a police source. Proof of this is: since the start of confinement, seizures have become rarer and the quantities often "anecdotal".
"Dealers find parades"
In matters of stupas, appearances can nevertheless be misleading. If the authorities of the department agree that traffic has decreased since mid-April, they refuse to paint an overly optimistic picture. "The dealers find parades, if they no longer sell in the halls of a building, they do it elsewhere, differently", insists this high ranking officer. Now, at classic deal points, individual meetings are preferred. Some have retreated to social networks, Snapchat or Facebook have become intense places of traffic. Specialized investigators also fear to witness an acceleration of the "uberization" of drug trafficking with home deliveries. Some deliverers continue to move but within a limited area and only during the day to avoid attracting the attention of the officials responsible for verifying the certificates.
Especially since faced with this restructuring of the market, civil servants feel helpless. In police stations, only essential activities are maintained, all "stupid" investigations are put on hold. "This is not our priority, which does not mean that if we come across a deal point, we will sit idly by," said a police source. Same story at the court. In Bobigny, the immediate appearances are mainly devoted to cases of violence or attacks on people. And according to the requests of the ministry, each detention is weighed at length.
Tensions over stocks
Could the coup de grace to this traffic come from outside? Because if customers run out, traffickers are faced with another problem: traffic restrictions seize supply. Morocco, the main exporter of cannabis resin has closed its borders, as has the Netherlands for the herb. To travel in Spain you must now have a resident card. Not to mention the reinforced border controls. "We are not yet in a situation of shortage but it is obvious that there are tensions in terms of stocks", confides a source within the central direction of the judicial police. Same observation for cocaine trafficking, paralyzed by the closure of ports and the drop in air traffic which prevents the arrival of Guyanese mules in France. An unprecedented fall which gives rise to new concerns: will this delinquency be replaced by another, even more violent? "Nature abhors a vacuum," worries this source.
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- Covid 19
- Coronavirus
- Containment
- Drug traffic
- Paris
- Society