The specially composed Paris Assize Court on Friday handed down sentences ranging from six months’ suspended prison sentence to 30 years’ imprisonment against 17 of the 22 defendants prosecuted for their involvement in the criminal actions of an pharmacy located within a Masonic lodge in Hauts-de-Seine.
Five accused were acquitted. The heaviest sentences were handed down against the two founders of the pharmacy and its main executor: 30 years of criminal imprisonment for the former domestic intelligence agent Daniel Beaulieu, 25 years for Frédéric Vaglio, his lodge brother responsible for obtaining the criminal contracts, and 27 years for Sébastien Leroy, the henchman.
Dylan Bilheude, designated as the author of the fatal shooting of pilot Laurent Pasquali, was acquitted with the benefit of the doubt, as were the couple formed by Alain and Nancy Maarek, who, according to the court, “did not give instructions” to commit the murder of Laurent Pasquali. The doctor and the engineer had called on the Athanor pharmacy to recover a debt of €100,000 that the pilot owed them.
A Masonic lodge transformed into a criminal office
Murder, assassination attempts, beatings, thefts: the catalog of the criminal network, which operated as a real commercial enterprise, had grown over the years, until its brutal fall in July 2020, with the arrest of two soldiers in Créteil. It is in the shadow of a “misguided” Masonic lodge, according to the accusation, that this “unexpected alliance” was formed between police officers, business leaders and even soldiers attached to the DGSE.
The two Freemasons at the head of Athanor, Daniel Beaulieu, a retired DCRI (former DGSI) agent, and the business manager Frédéric Vaglio, claimed membership, past or present, in the intelligence services. They promised a form of impunity to both the perpetrators and the pharmacy’s customers, most of whom said they were manipulated by the two men.
The main executioner of the charade, Sébastien Leroy, aged 36, had been recruited by the spymaster Beaulieu to carry out dozens of totally imaginary “outside the box” missions, such as the elimination of an alleged Mossad agent who turned out to be a simple business coach.
Request for forgiveness
It was ultimately the arrest of two soldiers attached to the DGSE, Pierre Bourdin and Carl Esnault, at the foot of his home, in July 2020, which put an end to the actions of the small business, whose modest income was estimated at €210,000 in eight years of existence.
Carl Esnault had explained that he thought he was acting for the DGSE, without knowing the entire mission, by virtue of compartmentalization, a key principle of the military institution. The two soldiers received 12 and 9 years of imprisonment respectively.
During his last words, Daniel Beaulieu, in a wheelchair since his suicide attempt in detention and as if dozing during the debates, stood up, supported by three police officers, and said: “Sorry to France that I served” and “to the victims, for what I did, agreed to do, let it happen”.
