A member of the Hornec family, who headed a recycling company, was indicted and imprisoned.
by Simon Piel and Thomas Saintourens
The hand of banditry appears again behind waste traffic. At the end of two years of investigation, the gendarmes of the Central Office to Combat Environment and Public Health (OCLAESS), the police of the Departmental Service of the Judicial Police of Seine-Saint- Denis and the interministerial research group of Seine-Saint-Denis arrested last week, seventeen people, including three members of the Hornec family, as revealed Franceinfo .
All were suspected of engaging in metal collection from flights, under cover of recycling missions. Metals – mainly copper and various ferrous metals – were partly reconditioned and sold to foreign societies in the Netherlands or in Belgium.
At the head of the company Stains Métaux Recyclage (SMR), which was a storefront in the city center, 100 meters from the Stains police station (Seine-Saint-Denis), Mehdi Hornec, 49, was indicted then placed in pre-trial detention at the Meaux prison (Seine-et-Marne). Three other individuals, including his partner, were referred before an investigating judge of the Bobigny court, then placed under judicial supervision. They are prosecuted in particular for “concealment of flight in organized gang”, “whitening” or “concealed work”.
lucrative activity
The survey begins in 2020 when, following a visit to the Regional Health Agency and the Directorate of the Environment, civil servants fall under high lead concentrations within the company. This is then already struck by an administrative prohibition pending a compliance of its installations with environmental protection standards. Administrative controllers also note a certain number of administrative irregularities which push them to seize justice.
For several months, investigators from the gendarmerie and the judicial police monitor the company, its employees and suppliers. It then appears that the metals sold to it come from thefts made in eastern France by men of Romanian nationality deemed to belong to already known clans of the police (Ivan, Cobzaru, Terziev, Konstantinov). For its part, SMR is far from declaring all transactions. Hundreds of Romanian accounts are in parallel credited by the company. During searches, 160,000 euros, weapons (an automatic pistol, five rifles and ammunition) and various luxury products were found.
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