Paul Leca — Wikipedia

Paul Leca , said Paulo, born the May 14, 1905 In Marseille or Valle-Di-Mezzana in Corsica-du-Sud and died in February 1966 in Marseille, is a figure in the Marseille environment, known mainly for its role in the flight of the jewelry of the Bégum Om Habibeh.

Landed very young on the continent, his career started in 1924, at the age of eighteen, with an arrest for drug trafficking in Beausoleil in the Alpes-Maritimes where he lived with his uncle. As soon as was released, he resumed these activities in Monaco and, in 1927, after his military service, he moved to Marseille, in the Saint-Jean district ^{[ first ]} , Haut-Lieu of the underworld at the time.

Despite its fragile aspect and its small size, Paul Leca quickly imposed himself in pimping and armed robbery. He was quickly considered by the police as “a dangerous individual”.

It is the attack on the gold train, in September 1938 , who makes him known in the Marseille environment. During the robbery in the middle of the night of a train which had just left the Saint-Charles de Marseille station, one hundred and eighty kilos of ingots, diamonds and golden rubies, stored in a armored car, were stolen by two bands From Marseille hitherto rival, but punctually united following an agreement between Augustus mela called “Gus the terrible” and Jo Rossi.

Suspected of being involved in this case, Leca succeeds in escaping the arrests that followed. Convicted in absentia to forced labor for perpetuity, he is acquitted during a second trial by producing an alibi which innocent it, and by getting rid of Attilio Deci, a grip of the beautiful of May having in the meantime Participated in the gold train, which had doubled it in a false dollar case.

At the end of 1940, Paul Leca was interned at the Mauzac camp in Dordogne, where he became friends with Pierre Bertaux ^{[ 2 ]} . He returned to Marseille in 1943, released in part thanks to his friendship with Paul Carbone.

Like many thugs of the time, he will be able to dose his behavior under the occupation. In Marseille, he became one of the main printers of false food tickets and also works for the resistance services, flying on occasion on their behalf of military documents at the German Navy. At the Liberation, Leca is accused of collaboration but Pierre Bertaux, who now occupies high office in the state apparatus, intervenes and the innocent.

After the war, Paul Leca became an important character in Marseille, linked to many middle figures and having police relations at a high level that will protect him for a long time. Thanks to her last conquest, Caroline, the daughter of Charles Méré, president of the Society of Dramatic Authors, he widens her relations to the beautiful world. He has all the appearances of respectability, having participations in Bars of Nice and displaying a luxurious lifestyle with his costumes of good cut, his cigarette in gold, his superb yacht “L’Eliette” in the Old Port And its splendid apartment in Place Ernest-Delibes, garnished with period furniture and masters of masters.

This does not prevent him from continuing his enforcement activities. He plunders the castles and trafficking the false dollars but it is in the fruitful trade of smuggling cigarettes that he becomes one of the kings in Marseille, just behind Joseph Renucci. Unfortunately for him, two tonnes of smuggling cigarettes were seized in December 1949 in a truck near Marseille. Leca is confused a few weeks later. His yacht which was also used for his team to commute between Tangier and Marseille, the wedges of the boat filled with blondes, is seized. He was sentenced to a fine of 130 million francs and three years in prison in absentia. Paul Leca is indeed on the run, first in the Camargue, then in New York, but for another case, that of the flight of the Bégum jewelry, the most famous robbery of the post-war period.

This is a robbery operated by a team of five men of which the August 3, 1949 , around noon, the richest man in the world at the time, AGA Khan, head of Ismalian Muslims, and his wife Bégum when they had left their luxurious canet home to go to Cadillac at Nice airport. A cyclist first slows down the car. It is blocked a little further by a traction before where three men come out which, under the threat of their weapons, seize a red leather case of the Begum, filled with jewelry, including “La Marquise”, A 22 carat diamonds. The amount of the breakage amounts to 220 million francs in jewelry ^{[ 3 ]} , a record for the time. According to Inspector Roger Borniche, the triggers actually projected Rita Hayworth, on vacation with his fiancé Prince Ali Khan in the villa of Aga Khan: realizing their mistake when they stopped Cadillac , they fell back on jewelry ^{[ 4 ]} .

On the new battery of the front traction, the police find the manufacturing number and its buyer at the Blancarde garage, Roger Sennanedj, says the big Roger, a well -known grip of the police, who is located in Geneva where he is refugee with her friend Renée Rémy. But when the couple is arrested, he disappears, probably eliminated by team members ^{[ 5 ]} .

Then the investigation trampled up, even threatening the career of Commissioner Valantin ( July 12, 1896 – December 31, 1968 ), until the day when Jean-Thomas Giudicelli, known as “U Caputu”, a ugly installed on the Côte d’Azur, but “informant” in his spare time to ensure his tranquility, gives the Judicial Police the names of Barthélémy Ruberti dit Mémé and François Sanna dit Choï. Their arrest makes it possible to learn that the organizer of the case is none other than Paul LECA, with the help of his friend Charles VINCELEONI, who had the information thanks to one of his relations, an American who is the ‘Lover of the Bégum cleaning lady. The cyclist responsible for slowing down Cadillac is Ruberti says Mémé. The three robbers are François Sanna dit Choï, Jacques Bennedetti and Paul Mondoloni. As for the driver of the front traction, it was a question of Sennanedj.

The trial opens the July 6, 1953 , in front of the Aix-en-Provence Assize Court, while a large part of the jewelry has been returned. Apart from Sennanedj and Paul Leca, still on the run, also lacks the appeal among the accused Paul Mondoloni, left in provisional freedom after paying his deposit, and who fled to Cuba. Sanna is sentenced to ten years in prison, Benedetti at the age of eight and Ruberti at six. Vencéleoni, for its part, is acquitted while Leca and Mondoloni are condemned to forced labor for perpetuity by contumice. The trial will be the occasion of a violent confrontation between the director of judicial police services, Georges Valantin, and Pierre Bertaux, director of national security, the first accusing his superior of being the real brain of the robbery because of His links with Leca ^{[ 6 ]} . This organized flight would have inspired The Bijoux of the Castafiore In Hergé, the Begum having pronounced “Heaven my jewelry” ^{[ 7 ]} .

Paul Leca leaves New York in August 1960 For France, while the case of the flight of the Bégum jewelry is almost forgotten. He had a prisoner there as soon as he arrived. Judged in November 1961 , he benefits from “attenuating circumstances” and was sentenced to two years in prison and to the payment of a fine of 91 million francs. Having already served eighteen months of preventive detention, it comes out free. Flowing a peaceful retreat in his property from Sainte-Marguerite in Marseille, he died in his bed in February 1966 .

Bibliography [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Jérôme Pierrat, A history of the environment: great banditry and high underworld in France from 1850 to the present day , Denoël editions, 2006 (ISBN  978-2207253687 ) .
• Jean-Pax Mefret, Bégum jewelry flight , Pygmalion, Paris, 2010 (ISBN  2756402478 ) .
• Jean Antetcl, Marseille of various facts , Éditions Other time, coll. All about Marseille, 2005 (ISBN  978-2845212237 ) .
• Jean Basal, The Marseillais clan, from nervous sponsors , Other times editions – Romantic time collection, 2006 (ISBN  978-2845212237 ) .
• Marseille capital of crime. Cross history of the imaginary of Marseille and organized crime (1820-1940) Laurence Montel (Paris-X University), Doctoral thesis, University of Paris X Nanterre, 2008.

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