It has already been two years since he was spinning between the fingers of the French investigators. Mehdi Charafa, a offender involved in narcotrafic and money laundering cases, was a refugee in Dubai. He was finally “handed over to France on February 18”, according to a source close to the file at the Ministry of Justice. The extradition of this “priority target”, in the words of the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, is far from harmless. While such transfers are allowed by the agreement signed on the subject between France and the United Arab Emirates (water) since 2007, “this is the first constrained extradition, without consent of the accused, between Dubai and France since 2021”, recalls this same source.
The requests, however, flock. Since the early 2010s, Dubai, this small emirate bordered by the Persian Gulf, where the thermometer rarely descends below 25 ° C and where many tax advantages allow investors to discreetly place their money, seduces criminals from around the world. Starting with the Hexagonal Narcotrafic networks heads: in His report rendered in May 2024the senatorial commission of inquiry on the impact of drug trafficking in France recalled that 17 of the 34 extradition procedures in progress with the water related to persons sought for breach of the drugs against narcotics.
What to request the visit of Gérald Darmanin, who submitted at the end of January to his Emirian counterparts a list of 27 names of French nationals targeted by international arrest warrants likely to be on their territory, and more particularly in the emirate of Dubai. Including Mehdi Charafa or Abdelkader Bouguettaia, Havre narcotraficious living in Dubai for five years, whose extradition “was recently ordered by the Dubai Court of Appeal”, according to a source close to the file.
“Non -fluid” procedures
The course of this 38-year-old Franco-Algerian perfectly illustrates the complexity of relations between the French judicial authorities and Dubaïotes. Abdelkader Bouguettaia, nicknamed “Bibi” in the world of organized crime, was sentenced in his absence to nine years in prison in France, in 2023, as part of a cocaine traffic case. Involved in other major trafficking, in particular via the port of Le Havre, he had so far led, despite the red notice of Interpol which aims, a sumptuous life in the emirate.
According to interrogation extracts consulted by AFP, he would have occupied two apartments with his partner in a opulent building in the city center, moving aboard luxury cars in chic restaurants or prestigious hotels. Above all, Abdelkader Bouguettaia is suspected of having continued to manage his narcotrafic activities from Dubai. Following a visit by Gérald Darmanin, then Minister of the Interior, in the Water in October 2023, the 30 -year -old was finally arrested for the first time by the Emirian police … but was released a few weeks later, before his extradition, which could not be carried out within a legal period of forty days. The Dubaïotes judicial authorities justify their refusal by the fact that all the documents in the file would not have been transmitted by France, despite the rigorous work of the magistrates.
This scenario is not an isolated case: arrested in Dubai in 2022, the Marseille narcoticker Tarik Kerbouci was also released after 40 days – and would have since refugee in Algeria, according to information from daily life The world. Abdel Karim Touil, arrested in November 2023, was also released for the same reasons – before being challenged in Lebanon again a few months later, then extradited in France. “Until now, the extraditions with Dubai have not been fluid”, summarizes the Express Eric Serfass, deputy prosecutor of Paris responsible for the specialized interregional jurisdiction (Jirs) and the national jurisdiction against organized crime (Junalco).
“Diplomacy and relentlessness”
In 2021, a series of arrests had nevertheless fed the hopes of French magistrates to see better judicial cooperation between France and water. In May 2021, the Franco -Algerian Moufide Bouchibi was arrested by the Dubaiian police – and the spectacular images of his arrest widely shared on social networks – before being given to France, where he was sentenced on appeal to eighteen years in prison. A few months earlier, the Marseillais Hakib Berrebouh drug trafficker was also arrested in Dubai, then extradited.
“At the time, it was necessary to show diplomacy and relentlessness,” recalls a judicial source close to this file. Without direct interlocutor on the ground, certain requests from the Jirs de Marseille, such as seizure and sealing the mobile phone of the French trafficker, remain at the dead letter. “When Dubai does not want to cooperate, they do not say no. They just stop answering you, and you have to manage with what you have,” says this same source, evoking a “certain opacity” on the decisions taken by the local judicial authorities on one file or another.
“Oil the mutual aid circuits”
It is precisely for the sake of transparency, and in order to “fluidify” judicial relations between the two countries, that Philippe Salomon, previously vice-president responsible for instruction to Junalco, was sent to Abu Dhabi last spring, as a liaison magistrate. “His presence changes the situation. If a file blocks, he is immediately on site, may meet our Eminean counterparts and allow the good understanding of the procedures from one country to another,” explains Express Laure Beccuau, general prosecutor of Paris. In addition to the presence of this magistrate on the ground, the exchanges between the French and Emirian authorities have accelerated in recent months: several meetings have been organized, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, between French and Emirian magistrates.
The director general of the Management and Collection Agency for seized and confiscated assets (AGRASC), Vanessa Perrée, also indicates to L’Express that she went three times to the United Arab Emirates last year, in particular to exchange with her counterparts around the creation of a structure similar to AGRASC to water. “We have made service offers, to communicate to them the way we work. For the moment, we have not had any committee execution of the Rogatory commission on the seizures and confiscations that concern us in Dubai, but the idea is to oil mutual aid circuits, to get there in the long term,” she develops.
These regular exchanges between the two countries seem to be slowly bear fruit. “Some recent decisions are the direct consequence of these meetings, with a diplomatic and political weight consisting in raising awareness of Dubai on the importance of these extraditions for France”, underlines Laure Beccuau. Last December, Ramzy A., a French drug trafficker who was refugee in Dubai and sentenced by default in 2023 to five years in prison and 100,000 euros fine was thus delivered – with his consent – to France by the Dubaïotes authorities, through an extradition procedure.
In addition to this affair, the Paris prosecutor evokes “three other files” concerning “big narcotrafiating” for which an extradition legal agreement has recently been obtained. “This shows a certain will on the part of Dubai to cooperate more on the subject,” salutes the magistrate. In order to maintain this “reinforced partnership” with the water, a source to the Chancellery also specifies “that an invitation” will soon be sent to the Emirian ministers of the interior and justice, in order to organize a working meeting in Paris in the presence of Gérald Darmanin and Bruno Retailleau on the subject.
No more monopoly
Is this unprecedented cooperation, widely publicized, sufficient to worry certain long-standing refugee drug traffickers? “Weak signals allow us to think so,” explains Laure Beccuau, who indicates “that 4 of the 11 people” under an arrest warrant issued by the Paris prosecutor’s office in Dubai “could recently flee, knowing that he was wanted”. “Dubai no longer has its monopoly character on the refuge destinations envisaged by criminals,” adds Eric Serfass, evoking the attraction of certain Maghreb countries or Turkey for drug traffickers. But the assistant prosecutor nevertheless remains “vigilant”, in particular in view of “generous reception” always reserved for possible investors in the emirate.
“They continue to be able to invest their criminal assets without being taxed, without being checked, and without taking the risk of being denounced,” he said. While the water was removed from the so -called “gray” list of the courts subject to reinforced monitoring of the International Financial Action Group (GAFI) in February 2024, in particular thanks to “substantial measures to improve security systems in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism”, according to the organization, the magistrate does not hide its astonishment. “We believe that there is a gap between the withdrawal of this list and the objective elements which allow us to observe that Dubai does not yet act completely in accordance with what could be expected of a nation on the question of money laundering,” he said. Last May, the report of the senatorial commission on the drug trafficking recalled that the internal security service (SSI) of the French Embassy for water had estimated French real estate investments falling under the territory in “more than half a billion euros”.
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