Three young people were in custody Wednesday at the police station in Roanne, in the Loire, in the context of the investigation opened following the intoxication of six people by trafficked cigarettes. The identified victims are between 15 and 20 years old.
The three suspects, who were arrested in early and late morning, are a young adult and two Roannais minors known to the police for small flights. According to their first statements to the investigators, they slipped "shamanic grass" in the rolled cigarettes they had offered to other young people in the street, told AFP the prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini .
Some of their victims had been robbed of personal items, including telephones, while they were delirious or comatose. One of the young addicts had been aggressive towards the firefighters who came to rescue him, while another had been found swallowing gravel.
A grass from Mayotte
This "shamanic grass" would come from Mayotte, the French department located in the Indian Ocean. Blood tests carried out on some of the six victims recorded on Roanne and Le Coteau, between July 27 and 30, revealed the presence of a cannabis substance, more potent than cannabis, which could come from the offending cigarettes, added the head of the Roanne prosecutor's office. However, the public prosecutor's office is waiting for further analysis results from recovered cigarette butts.
Further arrests are scheduled as part of the investigation for "robbery aggravated by violence and assembly and the administration of harmful substances" which was opened.