On Snapchat, a "discreet and anonymous" drug trafficking that the police are struggling to contain

For Gérald Darmanin, Snapchat has become "the social network for drugs".

"It is on Snapchat that the drug delivery men make their appointments, as you probably make an appointment to deliver a pizza," said the Minister of the Interior last week.

In times of confinement and then curfew, he accuses this application, which is very popular with young people, of promoting home deliveries.

A discreet online traffic that the police are struggling to contain.

"On Snapchat, messages are quickly deleted"

"In the street, there are too many cops with the Covid. We the dealers, we have found a safer and more discreet way. On Snapchat, there is anonymity, the messages are quickly erased. Customers give a address and we deliver discreetly ", tells the microphone of Europe 1 a dealer who calls himself Ben Lafrappe.

However, the system carries a risk: that of being approached by a police officer posing as a client.

"Sometimes there are fake customers, scales or infiltrated cops," he continues. 

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Despite everything, it remains complicated for the police to track down sellers on social networks.

Snapchat is indeed not very inclined to collaborate with OFAST, the anti-narcotics office.

Gérald Darmanin had also called on the leaders of the application to "take (their) responsibilities" to "stop being the social network of drugs".

At the moment, the number of account closings does not absorb the number of new ones entering the market.

Dealers "adapt to new modes of communication"

But this trend does not necessarily imply an increase in the number of active dealers, nuance Christophe Miette, in charge of judicial police cases within the union of internal security executives. "These are profiles that we know. In 95% of cases, they are the same individuals as those who work at points of sale known to the police. But they are adapting to new modes of communication. "

The mode of action of the police against this new "uberized" traffic therefore remains essentially the same. "The heart of the network remains the same, the supply remains the same so it is field surveillance, spinning, tapping with data crossings that consumers provide us. It is all this investigative work that will allow us to see the path of a traffic and which will allow us to bring it down. " This work is all the longer since Snapchat is not the only popular platform for drug dealers and consumers, who also communicate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The fact that they are based abroad slows down the work of investigators.