From France to Agrigento with 79 kilos of hashish hidden in the trunk. The method used is a classic one: a relay of cars to avoid any checks by the police.
But it ends badly for the drug couriers from beyond the Alps and a daring anti-drug operation by the financial police of Agrigento allowed the arrest of a French couple. Andre Mickael Ben Oliel, 40, and Assia Chabni, 51, both originally from Marseille, were blocked on the Maddalusa bridge, near San Leone. A third person, driving the unmarked car, managed to escape and disappear into the countryside. The raid began on Saturday in broad daylight.
The financiers’ operation
The financiers had already spotted the two cars with a specific stakeout service carried out at the Sacchitello service station in Enna. A first vehicle – with a Moroccan on board – was stopped along the state road 640 in the direction of Agrigento.
The man driving, although initially appearing cooperative, managed to escape into the countryside. Inside the car there were no drugs but documents and a cell phone. The second car, an Audi RS5, was stopped in Maddalusa.
The yellow flames carried out a search which gave a positive result: in the trunk of the vehicle there were three bags inside which 79 blocks of hashish weighing one kilo each were found. The forty-year-old, shortly before being arrested, threw his cell phone at the bottom of the river to avoid further investigations. And the reason for this behavior emerged during the validation hearing before the investigating judge Giuseppe Miceli.
One of those arrested, “I’m afraid of retaliation”
The suspect, defended by the lawyer Gianfranco Pilato, categorically refused to reveal the identity of the person who commissioned him to transport such a large quantity of drugs. “I’m afraid of retaliation” he confided to the judge. He then said he didn’t know to whom he should deliver the hashish. The investigating judge validated the arrest and ordered the couple to be placed in prison as a precautionary measure. For the investigating judge, in fact, “Ben Oliel is clearly at least connected to a probably highly dangerous transnational criminal organization”.
