In an interview with the “world”, the public prosecutor of Paris draws up an inventory of the fight against organized crime and alerts on the urgency of intensifying efforts.
Interview by Simon Piel and Thomas Saintourens
The national jurisdiction in charge of the fight against organized crime (Junalco) has the mission, for almost three years, to tackle the active criminal groups on French territory, notably linked to drug trafficking. This specialized jurisdiction, placed under the aegis of the Paris prosecutor’s office, takes care of the most complex files, where the corruption, money laundering and settling of accounts are intertwined.
Laure Beccuau, procurement of Paris, details for Le Monde the current issues of the fight against organized crime, including the most active groups, she underlines, are today “without limits” in terms of Funding, geographic projection and use of violence.
In view of the files dealt with by Junalco, how do you characterize threats linked to crime organized in France?
The fight against organized high crime is a current challenge, a major challenge. Today, the level of threat is such that we detect risks of destabilization of our rule of law, our economic model, but also of our businesses, at a major strategic level. In view of the eighty-six files of the Junalco, we realize that we are faced with tentacular networks.
Just look at what’s going on in Belgium and the Netherlands to demonstrate that the organizations that we face have no limits in their financial means, no limit in their borders or in their fields of action (drug trafficking, human beings, prostitution networks, etc.) as long as profits amount to millions of euros. These organizations do not know a limit either in their own rules: to impose themselves, they no longer forbid anything. We see it with the emergence of settling of accounts, kidnappings, threats, where the degree of violence is extreme.
the Netherlands and Belgium, which you mention, are regularly Shaken by violent settlement of accounts on the background of drug trafficking. Do you think this situation is led to reproduce in France?
If we do not have a sufficient reaction, this contagion is announced. We know that these groups have now reached a threshold in their presence on the entry points of the drug in France. In particular the ports, which constitute points of extreme fragility. These organizations are already projecting on port and airport structures, with henchmen present on our territory.
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