Two elected officials from this town in Seine-Maritime appear for complicity in drug trafficking before the Bobigny court, alongside 17 other people.
She will take her place in the dock, alongside her deputy and 17 other people. The former socialist mayor of Canteleu (Seine-Maritime) Mélanie Boulanger, who resigned since February, appears before the Bobigny court (Seine-Saint-Denis) from Monday May 27, in a vast drug trafficking case. This 47-year-old woman, figure of the Rouen PS and head of the PS-EELV list in the 2021 regional elections, is being tried for complicity in this case, just like her deputy, Hasbi Colak.
It all started in September 2019, with the arrest in Seine-Saint-Denis of a man linked to a family from Canteleu, the Mezianis, at the heart of the case. The police seized more than two kilos of cocaine and 50,000 euros in cash, according to the order for referral to the criminal court, consulted by franceinfo. A judicial investigation is then opened at the Bobigny court for drug trafficking and criminal conspiracy. The investigations will reveal, according to the prosecution, “a very structured family organization, around the Meziani siblings” – two brothers and a sister involved – to make a profit from trafficking in cannabis, cocaine and heroin, the profits of which are reinvested in Morocco.
Links are also highlighted between traffickers and Canteleu town hall. According to telephone interceptions, mentioned in the order for reference, the two Meziani brothers, one of whom operates from Morocco, regularly call Hasbi Colak, a long-time friend and deputy for commerce and development of the city, to exercise pressures and threats. They ask him, for example, to stop the verbalizations of a municipal police officer or to warn them of police patrols in the city. The investigation also reveals that the municipal councilor made his company vehicle available to them.
The wiretapping is also compromising for the mayor, elected since 2014 at the head of this town of 14,000 inhabitants. Mélanie Boulanger often talks with her assistant about traffickers. At the end of 2019, they discussed the installation of surveillance cameras in the Rose de Canteleu city and the Meziani’s anger at not having been informed of it. At the beginning of 2020, one of the brothers spoke directly to the councilor, via Hasbi Colak’s phone, and asked him to contact a commissioner so that the police stopped intervening in their bar. In exchange, the Mezianis claim that they are capable of guaranteeing his re-election.
According to the accusation, the mayor actually contacted the commissioner to ask him for accountability for a heavy-handed police operation and requested the postponement of the installation of surveillance cameras during a local security and delinquency prevention council. Elements swept away by the defense. “She is perfectly innocent of what she is accused of”affirmed at the end of February on France Bleu Normandie his lawyer, Arnaud de Saint Remy, denouncing “the relentlessness of which her client is the victim from certain people”.
In October 2021, Mélanie Boulanger, Hasbi Colak and 17 people were taken into police custody during a dragnet. In total, around one million euros of movable property were seized, including cars, bank accounts, 340,000 euros in cash, firearms, 75 kg of cutting products, 15 kg of heroin and 6 kg of resin. of cannabis, according to France Bleu Normandie.
Before the investigators, the mayor contested the facts with which she was accused. Faced with wiretapping, she highlights her fight against drug trafficking in the city and claims to have been threatened by the Meziani brothers, without having filed a complaint. According to her, the traffickers contacted her to try “to impress her, to intimidate her, to dissuade her from leading the fight” against delinquency.
“They tried several times to contact me through an intermediary. I am an elected representative in the field. They call me, I answer. They have obviously never called me themselves.”
Mélanie Boulangerin front of investigators
His deputy admits to having lent his vehicle to one of the suspects, but assures that he was unaware of his involvement in drug trafficking. He admits to doing services for the Meziani brothers to be at peace with the young people of the neighborhood. The two elected officials were released the next day, without prosecution. Mélanie Boulanger holds a press conference, describing “the worst moment of his life”. “I have never been worried about the outcome of this episode, because I know that I am beyond reproach,” she adds.
But investigations continue. In April 2022, the mayor and her deputy were indicted for complicity in the transport, possession, acquisition, offer or transfer of narcotics and placed under judicial supervision. Mélanie Boulanger proclaims her innocence in a statement and expresses her fears since her placement in police custody: “[Les trafiquants] decided to take revenge and make me and the town hall pay.” During her first questioning by the judge, the mayor maintained that she had not tried to oppose the installation of surveillance cameras to protect drug trafficking. It prevents. Last January, the investigating judges of Bobigny ordered his referral to the criminal court, as well as his deputy and 17 other people, thus following the requisitions of the prosecution.
In their order, the magistrates evoke a double game by Mélanie Boulanger, who publicly displayed a desire to fight against drug trafficking, but whose decisions were guided by the traffickers. “The doublespeak is more towards the traffickersopposes Jérémy Kalfon, Hasbi Colak’s lawyer. [Les deux élus] spend their time being very diplomatic with [les trafiquants] and walking on eggshells, they don’t always tell them the truth.” According to him, there is “no compensation, no enrichment or political benefit” in that case. The only candidate in the 2020 municipal elections, Mélanie Boulanger was guaranteed to keep her seat.
“The approach of the town hall will be to never say no head-on, to kick in, to save time. But there has been no action on the part of the municipality to satisfy the traffickers.”
Jérémy Kalfon, lawyer for Hasbi Colakat franceinfo
Asked by franceinfo, Mélanie Boulanger’s lawyer did not respond. “I am innocent, still standing”, had launched her client during her wishes to those administered in January. A month later, the mayor ended up resigning “for health reasons”, evoking “a decompensation as unexpected as it is worrying”. Mélanie Boulanger and Hasbi Colak face ten years in prison.