The first was found dead, one morning in June 2020, in the parking lot of the kindergarten in Montivilliers (Seine-Maritime). He had been kidnapped during the night by three hooded men. The second, a figure from the port of Le Havre with a tarnished reputation, was in recent years forbidden to appear on the docks by the courts. Allan Affagard and Allan Renault, 40 and 45, were childhood friends, dockers for the CNMP (New Port Handling Company), CGT permanent delegates at the Atlantic terminal. Both were implicated in one of the most resounding cases of cocaine trafficking in recent years – the seizure, in July 2017, of 1.3 tonnes of cocaine and 445 kilos of cannabis – including the six main organizers will appear before the Assize Court of the North, in Douai, from February 1 to 16.
Tried in a separate trial in 2021, Allan Renault was acquitted on appeal last May by the Lille Court of Appeal after legal proceedings which gnawed at him. The lawsuits against his comrade, Allan Affagard, ended with his death.
On the port, beating heart of the city of Le Havre, held with an iron fist since the post-war period by a hegemonic CGT, the affair had had the effect of an electric shock. The union, which still has a monopoly on hiring, had finally had to recognize the scale of the traffic – which continues to increase, from 5.2 tonnes seized in 2019 to 12.7 tonnes in 2021 –, while persisting in minimize the role of dockworkers in these drug outings. For the first time, especially, the management of the union found itself, through the two friends, directly involved. This did not prevent him from promoting Allan Affagard to a position of permanent delegate in May 2018.
The role of the “two Allans” and a certain Doudou
Indicted two months later for “criminal association”, Affagard and Renault were suspected of having facilitated the recovery of cocaine, for 75,000 euros each, by transferring the bags of drugs from the container that houses them to a empty box, which they then ensured passage with a fictitious exit slip. “The Allans”, as they were mentioned in the wiretaps operated by the police in the traffickers’ apartments, have always maintained their innocence. The fact remains that the investigation brought to light unhealthy porosities between the organizers of the outings – experienced delinquents from the housing estates of Le Havre – and the two trade unionists, without whom, that summer, it was impossible for them to recover the drugs.
Affagard and Renault had fallen for a few years in the nets stretched by a figure of the district of the Snows, Louis Bellhacène, nicknamed Doudou. A charismatic 56-year-old Le Havre titi, orphan of a father, known to justice but for minor offenses and who will be tried in Douai from February 1. Officially on disability since 2007, this former boilermaker, who frolicked in construction and catering, displays “a lifestyle in total mismatch with his income”, note the investigators, who list his raids at the Vuitton store in Deauville, his deposits several tens of thousands of euros in cash, or his trips to Cuba and Thailand (where he would own a house with a swimming pool on the island of Koh Samui, paid for in cash)…
Doudou is indignant, on the report, that he is made to pass “for the boss of the port”, but it is clear that he is at the same time in ankle with the traffickers of the districts of Champs-Barets or Graville , and with dockworkers he grew up with. According to his accomplices, he is “the one without whom nothing is done”. The tapping undertaken in March 2017 shows that Bellhacène was struggling to convince “the two Allans, heads of the union”, to help them set up the “construction site” planned for the end of July.
A Louboutin bag with a loaded gun
On paper, Affagard and Renault were uneventful guys with clean criminal records. Two well-paid family men, owners of their lodges. Sons of dockers, pushed into the Le Havre district of Aplemont, and friends since college. At the Atlantic terminal, they shared the same office and “were inseparable in the port”. Influential, they nevertheless embodied two precious sesames, in the eyes of the traffickers, in particular because as head of port handling, Allan Renault was warned in advance of customs operations. He was the first to meet Bellhacène, then the owner of a restaurant in the Eure district, Le Saint Louis: “He came into my life when I was weakest” , explained Renault to the investigating magistrate.
In 2014, he had just lost a son to leukemia. In March 2015, this bruised father went on vacation to Thailand and found Doudou there, who often stays in Koh Samui. The fifty-year-old would then have tried nothing, but the connection is made. Renault will eventually admit that it was later, in December 2016, that Bellhacène asked him for the first time, promising him 150,000 euros to share with “the other Allan” if they agreed to move a container. What he swears he refused. Without this affecting their good relationship: Allan Renault admitted having had lunch with Doudou five or ten times in 2017, mainly at the restaurant Le Flibustier, where he had his habits.
His acolyte, Allan Affagard, participated in these meetings. Between two games of 421, the latter one day complained about the gypsies living near his house, regretting not being armed. Never mind ! A few days after this discussion, Doudou goes to the beauty parlor run by Affagard’s wife, rue Richelieu. He knows the salon, his companion has befriended that of the docker and goes there at least once a week for UV or a manicure. Without manners, he entrusts her with a red Louboutin bag containing a loaded pistol, asking her to hand it over to Allan. Gift.
“We know where you live”
Summer is coming and the date of the drug delivery is approaching. The traffickers are desperately looking for a safe “team” to drive the “rider” (the crane that helps move the containers). Affagard naturally invited the Bellhacène couple to their wedding on June 17, 2017. According to Doudou, it was on that day that the groom assured him that the exit, scheduled for a month later, “could be done”. The case should not have been so sure, since Louis Bellhacène returned to the charge a few days later, this time alpagating Allan Renault as he left his house by car, on the Octeville roundabout. “He told me that he was in deep shit. He was in a state of stress, in a daze, more particularly after the passage of a vehicle which he thought belonged to the forces of order,” said told Renault, specifying that Bellhacène had then wanted to give him a Vuitton bag, which he had refused.
The blow will never succeed. Monitored by the authorities, the shipments that were seized in July 2017 immediately gave rise to a first wave of arrests. Doudou was one of them. The Allans were arrested a year later. Placed under judicial control, they are free, but will pay dearly for their bad associations. Three months before being kidnapped, in June 2020, Affagard had filed a complaint after receiving threats sent by SMS on encrypted messaging. His interlocutors harassed him (“You owe us a service, we know where you live”). According to an investigator, “it is obvious that he was revived by traffickers who were looking for complicity at the port”. Almost three years after his death, the investigation is slipping, even if three men were indicted in 2021. And although he is now cleared, the life of Allan Renault has not really resumed its course. “The looks that weigh on him are always heavy with suspicion,” says a relative.
The CGT management had paid a vibrant tribute to Allan Affagard, bringing together more than 3,000 people at the port in June 2020. It is now forced to collaborate in the investigations. His boss, Yoann Fortier scored a big blow by allowing the arrest of a docker in the union’s premises, in 2018. “The union executives can no longer save the heads of the guys wet in legal cases”, concludes a docker, who now knows that he is “a prey”.