The global traffic involved some 456,000 cartons of cigarettes for the years 2020 and 2021. That is to say no less than 45 million euros of market value!

A large European network for the sale of counterfeit cigarettes has been dismantled, leading to the arrest of eleven people in Belgium and one in Le Mans, the Rennes prosecutor's office announced on Friday in a press release.

Tuesday and Wednesday, an operation led by an investigating judge of the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Rennes aimed to dismantle this network "initially detected by the gendarmerie and customs of the agglomeration of Le Mans", indicates Philippe Astruc, public prosecutor of Rennes.

Over one million euros in banknotes discovered

The goods were stored in hangars in Belgium.

It was "mainly intended for the Belgian, French, British and Dutch markets", according to the prosecutor.

On the French side, the legal information brought to light a distribution network of counterfeit cigarettes, started in 2018, by individuals of Chechen origin living in Le Mans.

The latter have links "with a Russian-speaking criminal structure with international influence, specializing in tobacco trafficking and located in Belgium", underlines the prosecutor.

During the searches, more than a million euros in cash, eleven vehicles, computer equipment, telephones, cardstock stamped with a brand of American cigarettes, intended for the making of the packages, as well as a hundred of counterfeit cartridges were seized.

The manceau dealer sent to detention

Two suppliers of the Manceau dealer will be handed over to the French authorities while a third, a semi-wholesaler in Le Mans, was presented to an examining magistrate.

Already sentenced to five years' imprisonment for acts of aid to stay and extortion with violence, the 55-year-old man was notably indicted for criminal association with a view to preparing one or more offenses punishable by ten years' imprisonment and money laundering in an organized gang.

He was remanded in custody, according to the same source.

Miscellaneous

Nantes: A vast network of cigarette traffickers dismantled

Society

Bordeaux: A network estimated at more than 25 tons of contraband cigarettes dismantled

  • Belgium

  • Cigarette

  • Smuggling

  • Le Mans

  • Miscellaneous