Kofi Anash 
SAINT-BENOÎT. Arrested on Monday for having imported a thousand ecstasy pills ordered on the Darknet and paid in bitcoins, this Benedictine father justified his trafficking by a difficult financial situation.
Even though he collaborated with the customs and the gendarmerie, described with precision the modus operandi of his business and acknowledged all the facts.
The 44 year old Benedictine was arrested for importing and reselling a thousand ecstasy pills and was severely punished yesterday in immediate appearance.
Sentenced to three years in prison and a 70,000 euro customs fine, he was placed under a committal warrant and taken into custody following the hearing. In front of the judges, Mickaël Pierre, the computer maintenance technician unemployed for five years, admitted the facts. “I was in a desperate financial situation, we live on social minima with my wife and our children,” he said to justify this trafficking that began in June.
With his computer skills and himself a narcotics user, he started browsing the Darknet and began to order ecstasy pills from Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. “Between the scams and the interceptions, I calculated that on four orders, there is only one which would arrive”, admits candidly the father of the family having recognized 12 orders over the period, for envelopes containing between 150 and 500 cachets. Out of 3,361 tablets purchased online, only 1,026 will reach him.
Goods bought for 1 euro each, and sold for 10 euros near the Saint-Benoît bus station.
“We are dealing with a modern drug trafficker, who uses his computer skills to import poison,” laments the prosecutor. Man has indeed mastered the intricacies of the web enough to transform the money earned into virtual currency, bitcoin, which he immediately reinvests in the purchase of narcotics. “Ecstasy” with seductive names: Tesla, Punisher, Darth Vader, Pikachu …
However, the profit made is minimal compared to the risks he took. “I must have won 3,300 euros in total. We used it to please the children, buy a fryer or a bread machine”, details the annoyed defendant already sentenced in 2009 to a suspended sentence for resale of narcotics.
“You knew the risks but you made the choice of the easy way”, reproaches the prosecutor to him by requesting four years of firm prison. Earlier, the customs representative calculated the amount of the fine to be imposed on the basis of a resale price of ecstasy at 20 euros per stamp and the number of stamps ordered. Or around 70,000 euros.
Emphasizing “his total collaboration in the investigation” and the low profit made, the defense lawyer will seek leniency from the judges and a probationary stay because he was placed under a committal warrant without being heard by the court.
