Posted on 09/10/2003 2:53:07 PM PDT by alnitak
French police are powerless to stop the high-speed smugglers
FRENCH police are admitting defeat in the battle against drug gangs who storm through the country in convoys of high-powered cars, smashing through roadblocks to deliver their high-priced contraband.
Known to the police as ?les go-fasts?, the gangs have ditched the old-fashioned methods, smuggling cannabis from Morocco hidden in ordinary cars and lorries. Instead, they pack the biggest high-performance German saloons and 4x4 vehicles with the cannabis at their supply points on the Costa del Sol.
Their convoys of three or four vehicles, usually stolen in northern Europe, speed at night under escort by other vehicles to the lawless housing estates of Paris, Lyons and other big cities. A scout car drives ahead to ensure that the coast is clear while a follow-up car drives behind to warn of pursuit and to pick up any gang members in difficulty.
?Things usually go off calmly for the traffickers,? an officer with the French Central Office for Drug Trafficking said. ?A scout car drives ahead warning them if the customs are operating checks. If there are no controls, the cars drive past the customs at a normal speed. But if there are controls, the traffickers put their foot down. They smash through seven or eight roadblocks a year.
?Sometimes we manage to catch one or two vehicles, but these are dangerous practices for road users, for the police and for the customs officers, while the traffickers have nothing to lose. How can a police officer stand up to a car roaring at him at more than 200km/h (125mph) in the middle of the night??
The gangs, whose members are usually French of North African origin, are now supplying much of the six tonnes a week of cannabis that is being consumed in the Paris area, police said. The old smuggling method, which shipped about 60kg per car, could not meet the swelling demand from the big cities. A single vehicle in a ?go-fast? convoy can carry up to 800kg.
The gangs began developing their technique five years ago and are now running dozens of operations a year. News of the practice has been slow to emerge because of poor co-ordination among police forces and official embarrassment at the criminals? success.
With their underpowered cars, the French and Spanish police admit that they have been unable to halt more than a few vehicles in the night convoys, which stick to the motorway network in France.
In vehicles topping 300 horsepower, the convoys easily outpace pursuing police cars and motorcycles. The police made eight attempts to stop convoys over the past year, but with little success. Orders to avoid potentially spectacular violence restrain the police from employing more muscular methods. A few smugglers have been arrested, one after a shooting incident near Nantes, and 300kg of cannabis have been seized from the convoys. This compares with over 50 tonnes of cannabis seized across France last year, about 85 per cent of it from Morocco.
In one incident in Marseilles, a Mercedes 500SL pushed a police tow lorry off the road when it was used to bar its passage. In another incident, when a police Peugeot 306 tried to stop smugglers at a filling station at Versailles, the smugglers escaped by driving their 4x4 over its bonnet.
?If they are told to stop, they are immediately spotted so they have no other way out than forcing the block as fast as possible,? the officer said.
Police say the gangs, which are ethnically close-knit and difficult to penetrate, use sophisticated communications equipment to avoid detection. Le Figaro, which reported the convoy phenomenon yesterday, said that up to ten separate, new mobile telephone cards are used for communications during a single run. Catching the smugglers at their French delivery points is also difficult because they drop off their packages in car parks in the Arab-dominated suburban housing estates that are virtual no-go areas for police.
?These new techniques are raising a lot of questions. Dismantling the networks is extremely difficult,? the officer said. To combat the gangs, the French police are belatedly training officers in extreme driving techniques and equipping them with fast cars. They are also experimenting with ?stinger? tyre-shredding devices which are laid in the paths of vehicles equipped with the latest anti-puncture tyres. In addition, the French are installing cameras at motorway toll gates that record number plates. The convoys usually use the electronic télépéage gates, which have no barriers.
Police have had greater success in halting the ?go-fast? vehicles on their journeys to Spain, when they often carry payment for suppliers. One was recently seized with ?1 million (£700,000) of gold on board, which was destined to pay for a cannabis cargo. In a raid on a garage in the Lyons area last month, police found ?757,000 in cash and a banknote counting machine.
They also found accounts showing that the Lyons network cleared ?9.7 million between March and July.
France and other European states are also seeking ways of curbing the car-jacking trade, which supplies the high- performance Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi vehicles that are favoured by the smugglers.
Car-jacking has increased across the EU in recent years, with gangs bypassing electronic vehicle blocks by forcing drivers out of their cars at gunpoint while the engines are running, or raiding their homes and forcing the owners to start their vehicles.
Beyond the ethnic issue, police blame the demand that comes from the rising acceptance of soft drugs among the middle classes. M Sarkozy has run into widespread resistance in a campaign to enforce penalties against ordinary users of cannabis, a drug which is commonly smoked at Paris dinner parties and by school pupils. M Sarkozy?s latest idea is to confiscate the motor scooters and mopeds of youths found with cannabis.
It seems German vehicles have always had a fairly easy time driving towards Paris at a high rate of speed...
Saloons?
Oh, you mean a tavern.
What? You're kidding me!
And no johnie, you can't do a cavity search on a lorry. ;-)
Catching the smugglers at their French delivery points is also difficult because they drop off their packages in car parks in the Arab-dominated suburban housing estates that are virtual no-go areas for police.
LOL! This has got to be the most pathetic society in the history of civilization. They can’t stop a car that has gas in it, and there are entire neighborhoods where the police are not allowed to enter.
Gee, I wonder what Ahmed and Mohammed might like to smuggle into France? The Eiffle Tower is not long of this earth.
Assault rifle comes to mind, BTW, does anybody know what the "lawless housing estates" of Paris, Lyon etc. are?? I'm proud to say I didn't visit France when I was in Europe, so I wonder if these are like suburbs or more like countryside surrounding large castles or villas....or what??
Prairie
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