Interception - Duc Case

This case which is at the heart of the issue of official phone-tapping shows how useless phone-tapping is when it is used in inquiries about money laundering.

The context of timing used by the corrupted policemen went from the cinema ticket to ...

In Lausanne, on the 20th of November 1985
Av. de la gare 39
Case postale
1001 Lausanne
Tel. 021/20 31 11

METRO
CINE
NOTE TO THE STAFF IN CHARGE OF MOVIE THEATERS AND CASH REGISTERS

Subject : the rights of the police staff who come into our movie theatres

We would like to inform you that police officers, in uniform or not, do not have the right to get free tickets, even on presentation of their card.

Only the police employees in uniform can have access to the cimema if they come to control the age of the customers, but not to watch the film.

As a result, if policemen should present their card and ask you for a free ticket, please turn them away.

Furthermore, wil you please note their name and surname, as well as their card number.

Yours sincerely.

METROCINE Management

February 1992 : Following a series of phone-tapping, the police forces in Fribourg, Bern and Vaud have been informed that an important meeting between Sicilian and Columbian traffickers is going to take place at the Gstaad Palace . At the last minute, according to the police in Vaud, the police in Bern has cancelled the shadowing.

- The press relations department in the police in Bern has not been informed, why?

- Why has the police in Vaud violated the duty to keep a judicial inquiry secret

(preliminary research and investigation procedure)? Who did they possibly want to warn?

The intervention of the squad in Bern which is in charge of fighting the organized crime could have changed the course of events?

THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Paul-Eric Chartier
ACC. narcotics Appeal
Acusation court

The Prosecution appeals against the order of dismissal pronounced by the first Judge in Lausanne on the..... concerning the case mentionned above.

Means

What has got into the Judge of the district of Vevey-Lavaux (and his colleague in Lausanne) during the inquiry conducted against Paul-Eric Charlier? We are disconcerted by the documents and more particularly the examination statements. We are not so much astonished by the amount of money that was cleared through Charlier, as by the reprehensible thoughtlessness of the magistrate who conducted this inquiry.

In the first place, it is important to mention that on the...., the Judge Tenthorey discharged Charlier as he considered that the investigation had not proved the existence of an illicit traffic of narcotics in Switzerland; following an appeal on behalf of the Prosecution, the indictment court had cancelled the order and had transferred the case to the examining magistrate for an additional inquiry. This inquiry was conducted with a disputable thoughtlessness, as we will see later.

The way the inquiry was conducted is shocking! Indeed, the Prosecution feels that the investigation elements are not all present in the document. We may even think that Charlier is under the protection of the police, which is intolerable.

1. Indeed, we may wonder why this foreigner, an arms dealer as he confessed, an independent engineer in Lausanne, was not remanded in custody when he was suspected of having participated in one of the most obvious heroin trafficking operations between Sicily and the United States? There is no doubt about his culpability, as he himself confesses. He tries to minimize his role, which was to launder funds of up to 2 600 000 dollars for the Sicilian mafia, according to the order of transfer.

2. How is it that no defense attorney was designated for Paul-Eric Charlier from the beginning of the inquiry, when they became aware of the amount of charges against him? This assistance will be compulsory in front of the Court when the time comes to try him.

3. How is it that the examining magistrate was satisfied with the defendant's declarations and those by the smuggler who has been incarcerated in Belgium a long time ago?

4. How is it that the examining magistrate did not officialy summon the drug squad of the Security Police, or did not even demand a report proving that the suspicious behaviour of the assistant Chief Inspector (Pierre Duc) was officially supported in the present case - as shown in the fifth examination?

5. Finally, how is it that the examining magistrate did not conduct inquiries with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) in the United States, in order to confirm the declarations made by Charlier and Gillet, as well as the IPA Duc, about their collaboration in this case which was handled on the world scale against the Sicilian mafia?

As a conclusion, the Prosecution still wonders whether all the answers to the questions are not linked to this last comment...

But the criminal justice is not interested in these remarks; its role is not to protect the collaborator. The Judge could take into account this collaboration within the context of articles 63 and 64 of Penal Code only.

And to conclude, the Prosecution thinks that the order should be cancelled, and that the case should be transmitted to the examining magistrate so that he could complete the investigation and arrest Charlier immediately. Indeed, from the point of view of public order, it is shocking that this international trafficker should still be free.

On a point of information, the Prosecution declares that if the investigation was completed and if the facts were acknowledged, it would solicit from the prosecution court that Paul-Eric Charlier should be sent into a criminal court, as the gravity of the evidence against him is obvious and justifies a prison sentence longer than 6 years.

The public Prosecutor

CANTON OF VAUD Lausanne-Cit‚ post
First report
by Braissant 3184
________________________________________________________

address : Ref. :TT narcotics
CANTON POLICE Mr Justice in the disctrict of Vevey
Copies to: canton police files
POLICE FORCE
________________________________________________________

subject : information on Mr Charlier Paul-Eric, accused of infraction of the federal law on narcotics.

WESTHINDER SHIPPING AND TRADING SA

Paul-Eric Charlier
Bonne-Espérance 39 CH- 1006 Lausanne Switzerland

Activity : he is an engineer, physicist and oceanographer. The person concerned mainly works abroad on behalf of oil companies in the USA, Ireland and Italy.

Financial situation : he owns a flat in Lausanne and in Villars-sur-Ollon, valued at 120 000 and 80 000 francs. They have paid off all but 600 000 francs.

Morality : Mr Philippe Desmeules who sometimes works with Mr Charlier says he is honest, a hard-worker, and not malevolent.

_____________________

THE POLICE IN VAUD

Mr Charlier lives peacefully together with his family and friends.

He is not very well known in his neighbourhood, and is depicted as being calm, polite and a very good father.

antecedents: Report by the canton and local towns police forces :

the information is irrelevant and the case is in progress.

criminal record in Vaud : clean.

A. Braissant 3184

1/ Order by the canton of Vaud : in Lausanne, the defendant Charlier and Gianfranco Marcello tried to acquire one kilo of cocaine in one go, or four times 250 grammes. The defendant and G. Marcello sold at least 250 grammes of cocaine at a price varying between Fr. 270 and Fr. 300 per gramme.

In the end, Charlier and Marcello got about 2 kilos of blended heroin which they probably sold in Geneva or Lausanne.

Braissant wrote his report at the same period. Where does he mention half the million benefits and the money necessary to buy the cocaine?

2/ A second level mortgage schedule of 100 000 Fr. engraving the 8 984 PPE of the 3208 basic plot of land in the town of Ollon.

3/ According to Mr Braissant, it is a first level mortgage of 600 000 Fr. for an estimation of 200 000 Fr. At the time the PPE in Grey avenue in Lausanne was worth 450 000 Fr. and 270000 Fr. for the second, which gives a total sum of 720 000 Fr.

4/ Following the establishment of an Italian-Swedish contract, 3 million dollars vanished into payolas ?!

5/ Charlier payed a 350 000 Fr. deposit in order to discharge Gillet, a Belgian trafficker. Where did the money come from?

6/ When Charlier went to Switzerland, he was about one million and 80 000 Swiss francs in debt.

7/ The penal justice wrote a report against Charlier and forgot to mention a sum of 3 million Fr. The total added up to 4,5 million Fr between the Chollet and Roguin Bank and the Bank of Vaud.

Gillet, the customs officer and trafficker declared : "I specify that according to the statements both banks gave me, we are talking about 7 million dollars, and not 1 and a half million. I took the money to Palermo. ... I went to Mr Duc IPA 's place with Charlier.

Duc Pierre was born on the 12th of October 1943. He came from Villars-Bramard /VD, 117 route de Chavannes, in Lausanne. He was the Chief Inspector of the Security cantonal police in Lausanne-Cit‚.

"... On this day, Paul-Eric Charlier phoned us in a state, and told us that his friend had been arrested by the Italian police as he was flying back from the USA, in an Alitalia plane which came from Geneva.

"...As far as our country is concerned, we were not able to establish proof of illicit acts regarding the implication of Paul-Eric Charlier with the narcotics traffic..."(2)

"... In order to give an answer, we should be informed,but in this particular case they were friends.

As a result, the investigation will be conducted by the police only, and the chances are that they will not give us the exact amounts of money which were carried..."

In Palermo, the examining judge Falcone transferred the case against a group of traffickers belonging to the mafia,to the court; Charlier was mentionned in number 15."(3)

"...When Charlier's phone was tapped, nothing proved that he was a narcotics trafficker...." (4)

(1) The traffickers Edgar Barbe, Albert Gillet and Charlier took back from Lebanon several dozens of kilos of heroin (90% pure). Charlier liked to blend heroin with dextrose. This is why Gillet was denounced by the mafia. Marcello, his right-hand man,

Mr Marcello gave overwhelming reports written by the DEA to a journalist in Geneva (Mr Garbely) who says he cannot find them anymore. Yet, he remembers a violation of the cantonal law. For 4 grammes, 4 inspectors in two cantons.

(2) The examining judge in Vaud accused Charlier of having seriously violated the law on narcotics, of fraud, false qualifications, robbery attempts, of violation of the law on weaponry, to have perverted the course of justice, of misappropriation of objects, theft, of laundering the money belonging to the American-Sicilian mafia in the CR&Cy and BCV through various exchange transactions (some of them were exchanged in Tessin at very favourable rates).

Charlier declared :"I had a consequent series of arms business with the Armenians in Liban. I also sold mortars to the army in Liban (120 mm mortars, built in Finland and using Soviet munitions)."

90% of the non-banking revenues of the Swiss mafia mainly come from property investments (buildings, studios, villas) in the French-speaking region, or from legal revenues (companies, language schools, medical laboratories, hotels, garages, discos, shops...).

(3) Omission : in Palermo, the judge Falcone accused Charlier of participating in the heroin trafficking and bribery of public officials. Four months later, despite a report which had been written two years before, the local police cleared a trafficker who was a millionaire, as well as a group of corrupt policemen.

In Vaud, the police did not dare to send the IPA Duc and Inspector Jaton as witnesses for the prosecution in the court in Palermo, as they were afraid there could be reprisals! As he was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment in his absence, for being an international informer for the mafia (Liban, Sicile, USA, Switzerland), Charlier got a European Interpol warrant, that is to say nothing, as he was in Brazil (national, European and international warrants).

(4) Indeed : G. Marcello and P. -E. Charlier had a bylaw on phone-tapping which said : "Every phone number ending in 97, 98 and 99 is automatically phone-tapped twenty-four hours a day..."

Mr Charlier and Mr Marcello had transformed their telephone into a black box.

They had jammed the signal announcing the end of the call so that the mechanisms of invoice were not released. The black box could also detect the electric tension allowing the voice to be transmitted, so that the invoice was not released, whereas the voice was still audible (also blue box and cheese box). This was done on analogical lines which are equipped with a system (CDNIF = CalleD INFormation) which stops the connection when it activates the vocal frequency receiver.

Nowadays, you would be committing fraud on the phone by using the electronic phone signals which are transmitted to the computer in order to diminish or cancel the invoice.

As a result, money launderers and traffickers who are constantly in touch with the Italian Mafia benefited from a phone protection. Here is an example :

"At the present time, Paul-Eric Charlier declares that he is selling prefabricated houses produced by a Swedish company, in order to introduce them into countries which were victims of natural catastrophes (earthquakes for instance), such as in Algeria and Italy. We cannot prove whether Charlier is telling the truth or not".

Last false declaration : as Charlier's phone had been tapped by the Swedish prosecutor Kalmark, it was possible to determine how Charlier prepared this sale without being worried, when his phone was tapped. The loss of several millions shook Sweden, but not phone-tapping organizations in Vaud.

Nowadays, the Sicilian Mafia has found a refuge in land ownership, finance organizations, the creation of

The straw men of organized crime in Sicily and Milan who have established themselves in Switzerland have stopped using phones a long time ago, and they currently enjoy protocols of protection.

Unlike their illiterate rivals that the secret service in collusion with the Italian "launderers" present as their main threat.

The state police forces asking for more material enrich the information traffic and therefore all that is grist to the mill of the sicilian-columbians, the Muslim fundamentalists, the so called foreign services. ... In return, no tax control is instituted against the billion dollars collected by the organized crime which is protected by the law of diligence.

Some pieces of evidence related to money laundering are deleted from the Police files :