'Jambers' farmer Marc (57) does not escape a monster fine for illegal tobacco trade: “How am I going to pay for it? A bit for sure every month? ” (Inland)

Flanders got to know Marc Martain and his father Joël in the mid-nineties thanks to some reports from TV maker Paul Jambers. The miserable circumstances in which the farmers lived were not only food for 'high -profile television', but also for a judicial investigation. Their yard was so degraded that the duo received six months in prison with a delay for environmental pollution at the beginning of 2022 from the court in Kortrijk.

In the run -up to the process, the police checked on 10 March 2021 whether the two made sufficient efforts to remove the waste and asbestos on the farm. But during the inspection, the agents found a black plastic bag in the bushes containing a large amount of roll tobacco. Customs arrived on the spot and it took another nine bags of tobacco, good for a total of 119 kilograms.

Mentally weak

Research showed that farmers have been trading tobacco illegally for three years. The tobacco left their own two fields and that of colleagues to an Ypres producer, where they were cut and then sold in the Westhoek by Marc and Joël. The notebooks in which they kept their accounting showed that between 2018 and 2021 they had traded seven tons of tobacco illegally. For example, more than 800,000 euros in excise duties were evaded.

Because his father died at the end of June 2023 at the age of 84, only Marc was challenged for the Bruges criminal court. The defense there referred to the mentally weak state of the Zillebekenaar. “He had to do his theoretical driving test no less than 65 times. He was clearly illiterate and he was not treated as a vulnerable person, « lawyer Julie Podevyn fuddled.

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The Ypres tobacco company that worked together with the 'Jambers' farmers was also challenged to the court. According to Jan Leysen, lawyer from manager JV (62) from Houthulst, the prosecution of his client was only based on the statements of the farmers. “But they are totally unreliable. Although they were interrogated at a different moment, their typed statements are exactly the same, including writing errors. ”

“I didn't expect this. We had a doctor's certificate that proved that my father was demented at the time of his interrogation ”

Marc Martain

convicted person

Master Leysen also pointed out that father Joël only signed a document thirteen minutes after the start of his interrogation in which he renounced his right to assistance from a lawyer. “They were told that it would all be better than expected if they allowed everything. The reporters proceeded as cowboys. « 

According to the company's lawyer, the house search was also illegal. « The police were only there to check whether things had been cleaned up, not to conduct new investigation, » said Master Luc Arnou.

Read too. Illegal Tobacco Trade yields 'Jambers' farmer Marc (56) Monster fine: « No idea how I will pay for this »

However, the Bruges court wiped all the arguments of the defense off the table. « Nothing indicates that these people are vulnerable people who, under pressure from the interrogators, took their right to assistance, » it sounded. According to the court, there was also no irregular house search. « It is clear that all the defendants have worked irregularly on the illegal trade of tobacco goods and this on an organized large scale, » it sounded.

The Court of Appeal in Ghent followed this reasoning on Wednesday and convicted Marc Martain, just like in Bruges, to four months in prison with deferment and five million euros, of which 200,000 euros effective. He also has to repay more than 860,000 euros in evil excise duties.

Rental house and benefit

For Marc the statement is a cold shower. « I didn't expect that, » he sighs. “We had a doctor's certificate that proved that my father was demented at the time of his interrogation. How am I going to pay all this? A little sure every month? The farm has been sold and I live from a benefit. With that I have to pay the lease of my rental house. Well, if I had known all this, I would never have started it. Those environmental infringements have killed us. «