Beware now of the packages you receive. On July 16, 2021, customs officers at a French airport discovered 4.3 kilos of cocaine hidden in two packages. When a man comes to retrieve the packages, he claims that he does not know their contents, and that they contain drugs. According to him, he had “no control over these packages”.
He is then directly prosecuted for having transported unauthorized narcotics, moreover without an official document of prohibited goods. During its judgment on July 22, 2021, the criminal court acquitted the defendant, but the public prosecutor and the customs administration appealed this decision.
The holder of fraudulent goods is thus deemed responsible for fraud, decides the Court of Cassation. It is useless to pretend not to have known what it contained, or to maintain that one cannot be responsible for anything until one has materially taken possession of it, completed the institution.
It is indeed up to the recipient to prove his good faith, to prove for example that he would have been deceived because he would have done his best, previously, during the shipment, to ensure the authorized contents of the package. The man in question is now exposed to customs sanctions, linked to fraudulent importation, which can be financially very heavy.
It should be noted that public carriers and their servants or agents are not considered as offenders when they put the administration in a position to effectively pursue proceedings against the real perpetrators of the fraud, concludes the Court of Cassation.
