the AZF group case before the courts in Paris

A man and a woman appear before the Paris criminal court this Tuesday, February 13, for having sent bomb threat letters to the Élysée in the early 2000s.

“The 10 000 SNCF agents have finished inspecting the 32 000 kilometers of French railway tracks without having found any trace of a bomb”, announced a journalist in March 2004. At issue: nine threatening letters which have been piling up for two months on the offices of the Élysée. They are signed AZF, a group which defines itself as “terrorist” and claims to have hidden nine bombs under train tracks. Twenty years later, this Tuesday, February 13, a 76-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman appeared before the Paris Criminal Court for criminal conspiracy, violation of the legislation on explosives and threats of destruction.

At the end of 2003 and beginning of 2004, the AZF group demanded a ransom so that its bombs did not explode: 4 million dollars and 1 million euros to be delivered in small denominations by helicopter from the roof of the Montparnasse Tower in Paris. At first, the authorities took these threats for fanciful delusions. But very quickly, the Ministry of the Interior became frightened because, at the beginning of 2004, two very sophisticated explosive devices were found hidden under the rails.

Exchanges in classified ads

The Ministry of the Interior then decided to enter into negotiations with AZF via the newspaper’s classified ads. Release with code names: “Suzy” for the ministry and “my big wolf” for AZF. For several weeks, the two exchanged encrypted messages to organize the delivery of the ransom, but the affair quickly spread to the point of forcing Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, to speak. “As I speak, we know nothing about this group, but we take the threat seriously, all police and gendarmerie services are mobilized at all times on this matter,” he asserted. A few days later, AZF announced in a final letter the suspension of its activities and never gave any sign of life again.

“My big wolf” therefore disappeared until 2018, when two people were arrested after a denunciation. Behind the pseudo-terrorist group were in fact a bankrupt company boss and one of his employees. The latter was reported to the police by a former lover. Very quickly, the duo admitted to being behind AZF, but affirmed that their goal was only to pocket the ransom. A blackmail which, according to the business manager, was never intended to “make dead people”.