A clan leader who sent gangs of child pickpockets to target tourists in the Paris Métro and popular attractions such as Disneyland Paris has been jailed for human trafficking. Roberto Hamidovic, 48, likened to Fagin, Charles Dickens’s notorious criminal boss, ran a network of child thieves, mostly girls, some as young as 10, who brought in an average of €25,000 (£21,500) a day, according to police. If the terrorised youngsters failed to hand over enough money, they would be beaten, burned or sexually abused, the Paris court heard.
While Hamidovic, the patriarch of a Roma family of Bosnian origins, and the adult family members lived a “life of luxury” – enjoying designer clothes, five-star hotels, expensive restaurants and cars, and flashing their cash at casinos – the girls were put up in budget hotels or dilapidated squats. Seven members of what detectives called the Hamidovic clan – four men and three women – were on trial for human trafficking, organised theft, corruption of minors, money laundering and criminal association as part of what detectives say is an international pickpocket network spanning several European countries. The court sentenced Hamidovic to the maximum eight years in prison and a €500,000 (£430,000) fine; his wife, Lejla, was given a six-year prison sentence and €300,000 fine.
Two of the couple’s sons, a nephew and two female relatives were given between five- and seven-year prison sentences and fines. All were told they would be extradited and banned from entering France on their release. For detectives who have been investigating the Hamidovic network for decades there was a grim sense of deja vu.
In 2010, French police arrested Roberto Hamidovic’s uncle Fehmi, 58, who already had a conviction for people trafficking in Austria, along with his two sons near Rome and a dozen other clan members in the south of France and Italy. At the time, Paris’s judicial police chief, Christian Flaesch, said: “It feels like we have broken up a completely medieval structure.” After Fehmi Hamidovic was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to seven years in prison, his nephew Roberto took control of the clan, believed to be responsible for up to 75% of thefts in the Paris Métro. In court, however, Roberto Hamidovic claimed he was a secondhand car dealer earning between €2,000 and €5,000 a month.
Alice Guillet, the public prosector, put forward a different story. She said the Hamidovic family used minors “to ensure a kind of impunity”. The pickpockets were told to tell police they were 12 years old – a year below the age of criminal responsibility in France – forcing police to release them.
She described the girls’ daily lives as particularly “challenging and painful”. They were “children without roots, without a future, whose parents sometimes don’t even know their birth date”, she added. A pre-trial investigation by Le Monde revealed that Hamidovic’s son Roberto Hamidovic Jr, 22, nicknamed Gony, oversaw the pickpocket gangs on behalf of his father – booking taxis to transport them to various sites around Paris.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
