The elected, which was indicted on April 22, had been placed in custody in October 2021 during a major police operation and release.
Le Monde with AFP
The Socialist Mayor of Canteleu, near Rouen, Mélanie Boulanger, was indicted on April 22 for complicity in drug trafficking and placed under judicial review, on Monday, April 25, at the prosecution. Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), confirming local press information. The elected was placed in custody in October 2021 during a wave of anti-drug arrests and released.
A major operation in Seine-Maritime and Seine-Saint-Denis, but also in the Eure, Val-d’Oise and Yvelines, had resulted in the 13th of October in the lodging of eleven people on the nineteen orders by order of the investigating judge. The wave of arrests led by a Bobigny judge had occurred as part of an open judicial information in September 2019 for drug trafficking and criminal association. In particular, she gave rise, on October 8, to the interpellation of Mélanie Boulanger and one of his deputies of the municipality of Canteleu. Like six other people, the two elected officials had seen their custody raised during the weekend.
“No link” with drug traffickers
“It will be up to the investigating judge to appreciate the suites to give concerning these persons with regard to the elements collected in the context of the judicial information,” said Eric Mathais, Prosecutor of the Republic of Bobigny, in a Communiqué.
At the time, the mayor of Canteleu and Vice-President of the Rouen metropolis had felt that his investment in custody was “not justified” and had assured that she had “no link” With the drug traffickers of his city of 15,000 inhabitants. No charge had been held against her and his deputy, according to the lawyer of the elected, M e Arnaud de Saint Remy.
The eleven people inquiries have, for the most part, been for association of criminals and for association with drug trafficking, according to the prosecutor. They were mainly placed in pre-trial detention. Eight of them are domiciled in Normandy, and three in the Paris region. In a first press release, Mr. Mathais announced that the searches had “allowed 15 kilograms of heroin, 25 kilos of cutting product, firearms and the sum of 375,000 euros”.