By Roger Green news@algarveresident.com
The case of a drug smuggling operation focusing on the Algarve, that invites comparison to a Hollywood movie, has been heard by a panel of judges in a Faro court.
Two French citizens believed to be members of the Marseilles mafia in the Côte D’Azur, are accused of being involved in a plot in 2011 to bring in 872 kilos of cocaine, which had been shipped by a drugs ring in South America, to Lagos, where it was to be unloaded.
The accused woman, named as Julie Carrette, was working in close collaboration with her father Jacques, the head of the operation, but by a twist of fate he died in a car crash on the A22, shortly before the consignment of cocaine reached the Algarve shores in June 2011.
After his death, she told the court that she became the “eyes and ears” of her father in order to co-ordinate the operation with the help of her accomplice Pierre Buroni and to “finish what my father had started”.
The two accused operated from a house in which they were staying in the suburbs of Faro where they were detained by police in June 2011.
Police found arms, ammunition, various electronic devices used for maritime communications, a global positioning system, money of different denominations, jewels and a large number of high value watches.
Meanwhile, two other Frenchmen, alleged to be part of the elaborate plot, were arrested by the French authorities in Martinique in the Caribbean, on board the boat that was being used to transport the cocaine from Venezuela to Europe last June. The court heard that in order to cover their tracks the accused communicated by mobile phones using code words such as ‘kids’ (meninos) for cocaine and ‘cars’ (carros) for boats.
Julie Carrette told the court that she had started to help her father in drug trafficking in 2011, according to a report in the Correio da Manhã. She said that many people were involved and she had helped to establish links between the different parties.
Sentencing of the two accused is awaited.
