International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 31

International Journal on Criminology
regard to this secondary criminal activity said that five mobile phones had been found
in his cell the day before his transfer. This no longer appears any great surprise as far as
French prisons are concerned, although five does seem rather a lot. What is perhaps more
alarming is that his cell had already been thoroughly searched just one week previously...
In April 2004, an individual born in Corsica, strongly suspected of terrorism, was
incarcerated. His telephone calls had been under surveillance, and activity was noticed
on his line even in the days following his arrival at La Santé prison—he began to call his
wife regularly. The police listened attentively and, in addition to information they were
able to gather concerning the case in hand, they also obtained enough information to
arrest a prison guard who had been paid some € 800 to bring the mobile phone in to
him.
At the beginning of March 2007, the case of Boubacar Ba, also nicknamed “El
Hadj”, “Papa” and “The Old One,” came before the 16th Chamber of the Paris Criminal
Court. As a recidivist, he faced up to twenty years’ imprisonment. Guinean by origin,
and sixty years old, he had been convicted twice under other identities. He comes into
the scope of this study as the leader of an international cocaine trade, once again run by
mobile phone from within the walls of La Santé prison.
In August 2004, Ba was imprisoned for “the export of 2 kg of cocaine” to
Belgium. Far from ending the trafficking, his detention gave his business a tremendous
boost. For the President of the Court—naïve or willfully ignorant?—this was “the most
puzzling paradox that we had to judge in this matter.”! Using nothing but his mobile
phone, Boubacar Ba had established a complete trade route from South America to
Switzerland and back via France. His system was highly developed. Sometimes the drugs
would be shipped by container to Cotonou, in Benin, where Ba's family handled the
redirect logistics. Most of the time, however, the merchandise would be sent directly
from Bogota to Paris in suitcases, which would then be conveyed to Switzerland, from
where they would return, full of banknotes.
The bags traveled alone; Colombian accomplices at the airport 22 were responsible
for labeling them and loading them aboard. Alerted by a “short message,” their Parisian
recipients needed only to identify them when the aircraft landed and take them out
of the airport. Each suitcase would contain several dozen kilos of high purity cocaine.
Between August 2004 and February 2005, nearly 93 kg—$5.2 million worth—was seized,
according to customs.
The cocaine’s itinerary was well prepared. In Bogota, the suitcases were placed in
the hold of the aircraft by Boubacar Ba’s contacts, probably the cartelito “Norte del Valle”
that “held” the airport.
Alerted no later than three days before sending, Ba would mobilize his team,
telling the Colombians who their contact in France would be, and to whom photographs
and registration numbers of the baggage in question should be sent. When the plane
landed at Charles de Gaulle, Paris, a handler took care to extract the bag and pass it on to
22
Boubacar Ba had links to Norte del Valle, the organization with “control” of Bogota airport at the
time.
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