One of France's Top Cops Is on Trial for Allegedly Spying on Police for Drug Dealers

After an illustrious career in French law enforcement, former French supercop Michel Neyret went on trial in Paris Monday, charged with a long list of criminal offenses, including leaking confidential information to his informants in exchange for money.

Neyret — who once headed up the Lyon chapter of the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) before being promoted to deputy police chief of France's third-largest city Lyon — stands accused of "passive corruption and influence peddling, criminal conspiracy, breach of professional secrecy, harboring stolen goods, drug trafficking, embezzlement, and money laundering."

The charges are at odds with the former image of Neyret as a highly-respected and exceptional police officer. In 2004, he was decorated with the Légion d'Honneur — France's highest honor — for his police work. In 2009, he helped recover 11.6 million euros ($13 million) stolen by security truck driver Toni Musulin during a spectacular heist that was later turned into a film.

His fall from grace came in 2011, when the drug squad started wiretapping two men, Yannick Dacheville and Gilles Benichou, following the seizure of 100 kilos of cocaine in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. French daily Le Monde described Benichou as a petty criminal, who was once a registered police informant but was struck off the list in 2000 for being "unreliable."

During one conversation, Benichou told his associate that he had a top-level informant within the police force — an officer later identified as Neyret. Cops started tapping Neyret's phone, too, and in September 2011, they came to his house to arrest him.

During one of Benichou's wiretapped conversations, Neyret's wife Nicole can be heard chastising him for spoiling her husband with his lavish gifts.

"Ever since you started giving him money, he's not the same. Because mister had to go out, mister spends… He spends everything on champagne, when he goes out […]. You've ruined him for me, Michel. […] Now he's more of a gangster than the others. Stop, stop, he's obsessed with money, money, money," she begged.

Neyret's wife is also appearing in court alongside her husband and several of his alleged informants.

Neyret defended himself before the judge Monday, arguing that he had "never given out information that got in the way of an investigation." According to French daily Libération, Neyret said that he was trying to establish "a relationship of trust" with his sources. He denied becoming part of the criminal underworld himself, but did, however, admit he had been reckless. "At the time, I thought I was in control of everything. Perhaps in the end I was overwhelmed by the situation."

The case against Neyret has raised new questions about the relationship between cops and their informants — particularly since it has been alleged that the former cop paid some of his sources with seized drugs.

For Christian Lestavel — a former thief who went on to spend 25 years working undercover for the French intelligence services — such practices are part of the game.

"It all comes down to whether or not you want an active police force," said Lestavel, who wrote about his time as an informant in the book Nom de code: La Loutre (Codemane: Otter). "The French police force is considered one of the best in the world, because, for lack of better resources, it's on the ground, and the results are there to see."

Lestavel told VICE News that he had never worked directly with Neyret, but that he knew people who had. He described the disgraced police officer as "a man of honor and a great cop," who fell victim to his own "enthusiasm."

The legal framework that regulates the collaboration between police officers and informants was introduced in 2004, with the adoption of the Perben II Act — a series of new legal measures to help in the fight against organized crime. As part of the new legislation, the government set up a Central Bureau of Sources (Bureau Central des Sources — BCS), working in close collaboration with the Interministerial Service for Technical Assistance (Service Interministériel d'Assistance Technique — SIAT) — an agency that trains undercover cops. The BCS keeps records of all police informants, who are each given a confidential identification number. Neyret's source Benichou was not on this list at the time of their collaboration.

The law also determined how and how much informants should be paid. A decree issued on January 20, 2006, stipulates that the compensation of informants should be determined "by the national police or gendarmerie commissioner, or by the criminal police unit of the officer in charge of the investigation." It also spells out procedural safeguards against abuses. According to the decree, all payments must be accompanied by "a receipt, signed by the beneficiary, [which must be] kept confidential and protected by the service or the unit carrying out the investigation."

In his 2011 book Les Indics — an investigation into the secret world of police informants — journalist Christophe Cornevin found that, "according to the latest analysis, the super-secret [BCS] database contains 1,700 code numbers, and as many informants." He also found that the going rates for informants ranged from 50 euros ($57) to 100,000 euros ($115,000) "for information relating to investigations with an international scope, or highly sensitive [investigations] involving the police and politicians."

In a 2015 interview with Libération, Frédéric Veaux, deputy director of France's criminal police unit, explained that recruiting informants takes some skill, and that not every police officer is suited to the job.

"We are looking at complex [informant] profiles," he said. "You have to manage them, answer their calls, sometimes several times a day, reassure them. And you have to make sure they are loyal."

To avoid officers getting into hot water because of dealings with unreliable or shady informants, the SIAT and Interpol have drawn up a "black list" of informers non grata. In Les Indics, Cornevin writes that, "In France, [the list] contains the names of around 50 informants you shouldn't go near," because they are either too dangerous or untrustworthy.

Neyret's trial is expected to last until May 24.

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This article originally appeared in VICE News' French edition.