Neubrandenburg (dpa/mv) - The long-term drug trial against the so-called cocaine gang at the Neubrandenburg district court will drag on for months. As Judge Henning Kolf said on Wednesday, a new report on the use of the wiretapping data must be drawn up. Negotiation dates have therefore been set until April 2023. The trial of the four men, aged 40, 50 and two of them 60, has been ongoing since September 2021. They are accused of gang drug trafficking and violating the gun law.
The accused from the Mecklenburg Lake District and Schwerin are said to have taken up to 7.7 kilograms of cocaine and other drugs from the Netherlands in prepared cars in 2020 and traded with them. They were caught in an LKA raid in November 2020, and cocaine and large amounts of cash were also confiscated.
The case is related to a spectacular data interception operation by French investigators. They had cracked a data network - the Encrochat network - that was considered tap-proof. Investigators have been able to eavesdrop on suspected criminals' mobile phones across Europe. In this context, processes are running nationwide. However, the defense attorneys in Neubrandenburg doubt that the data from France, which came to the state criminal investigation departments via the Federal Criminal Police Office, has anything to do with their clients. Now the report should bring clarification.
In a similar proceeding, the Rostock Regional Court sentenced five other "Encrochat" drug dealers to prison terms of between three and a half and five years for gang trafficking in 2021.
