International drug trafficking: a LREM executive in Reims indicted

The MP is indicted for importing, transporting and detaining narcotics in organized gangs and criminal conspiracy.

A substitute LREM de Yvelines, local leader of the presidential majority in Reims, is indicted in the context of a survey on drug trafficking between Morocco and France.

Moussa Ouarouss is in particular indicted for importing, transporting and detaining narcotics in organized gangs and criminal conspiracy as part of a judicial investigation initiated by the Lille Special Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS), entrusted to the gendarmes of the Reims research, said a source familiar with the matter, confirming information from the daily L'Union.

Moussa Ouarouss was arrested at the end of August while "relatively important" seizures were made. "Between six and eight" people are indicted, placed for some in pre-trial detention, as part of this investigation into trafficking in connection with the Rif region.

Placed under judicial supervision

"There was a period when he was relatively active, he had been away for some time" at the time of his arrest, the same source added. Mr. Ouarouss has been placed under judicial control and the investigation is still ongoing.

Asked by AFP, Moussa Ouarouss said he did not want to react to the substance of this case. "I answered the questions of the investigators, this case does not worry me at all," he said only, claiming to have filed several complaints for defamation. The 33-year-old former PS member is deputy Nadia Hai, elected at the legislative elections in June 2017 in Trappes (Yvelines), in the former constituency of Benoît Hamon.

Asked by AFP, Ms. Hai said she no longer had contact with her deputy "for several months" because of "political disagreements". "I fell off the chair when I was told about this case, but I believe in the presumption of innocence," she added.

Leader of a biscuit factory created in 2018, Moussa Ouarouss unsuccessfully sought, in the spring, the investiture of the majority for the municipal elections in Reims, finally granted to his rival, the lawyer Gérard Chemla. In 2016, he appeared on photos of Emmanuel Macron's travels: notably in Châlons-en-Champagne, on September 1st, in a bar in Paris on September 12th - he wore an earphone - in Marseille on November 17th and Metz on November 21st.

He was also president of the boxing academy "Team Hamid Zaïm" in Reims, inaugurated in January 2017 and closed in 2018. In photos published on the Facebook page of the academy in March 2018, he appeared alongside the Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

SAISI