ANTOINE MOREAU-DUSAULT
"Follow the money." The phrase, made famous by the 1976 film All the President's Men, became the leitmotif of a massive investigation launched in 2020 into an international drug trafficking operation orchestrated from Paris's upscale 8th arrondissement. By following the money, police officers from the Central Office for Combating Major Financial Crime (OCRGDF) traced the operation back to a man living just steps from the Interior Ministry and the Elysée Palace.
Firat Cinko, 39, was far more than just a shadowy financier with "the profile of a well-presented business school student," according to a lawyer who crossed paths with him. He is suspected of having imported several tons of cocaine from Latin America to France via the French Caribbean. The case has resulted in an order to stand trial before a criminal court, alongside 22 potential accomplices, on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. Contacted, his lawyer declined to comment. On Wednesday, February 11, an appeal hearing was scheduled for him to challenge the charges.
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