640 kilos of vanilla pods stolen, shade houses destroyed, vines ripped out, farmers giving up… This is the grim tally of a six-person group who carried out burglaries on the vanilla plantations of the island of Taha’a between 2021 and 2022. Among them, a buyer and preparer well integrated into the sector, to whom the thieves sold their loot. He was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended with a custody order, while his accomplices received sentences ranging from 18 months suspended to 3 years in prison.
With this trial, we delved into the labyrinth of vanilla culture: the difficulty of production, knowing it takes three years to reap the fruits of one’s labor with a market price that fluctuates; a harvest that varies each year according to climatic and health hazards; a market where producers with official licenses rub shoulders with those who do not, and those in the shadows who wait for others to do the work for them and who take directly from the shade houses.
As for the latter, six of them are due to appear this Tuesday for having pillaged four vanilla plantations on Taha’a between 2021 and 2022. Five raiders, and a fence who is well integrated into the sector: a vanilla buyer and preparer, he holds the necessary professional card and works with Epic Vanilla.
“There wasn’t enough vanilla on the legal market.”
In 2021, for the first raid in a shade house located with the help of Google Maps, because it was isolated, there were three of them. At the helm, Georges T. explains that the idea of stealing vanilla beans came “like that, for the money.” He tells his cousin Heifara A. and Brandon C., with whom he slips into the greenhouse after cutting the shade cover. They cut the beans and transport them in a wheelbarrow to the road where Heifara awaits in his vehicle. They load 100 kilos of vanilla not yet ripe and go to stash them.
The next day Heifara – currently detained for a drug case – goes to see Richard B., a vanilla preparer and buyer at the head of a family business, seemingly not very particular, who buys back all the merchandise at the price of 10,000 francs per kilo. A price that would correspond to the legal market for green vanilla. Mature and prepared vanilla, on the other hand, is worth between 50,000 and 80,000 per kilo. Questioned later about the rationale of buying back stolen vanilla at market price, he explained that it was to build up a stock, “there wasn’t enough vanilla on the legal market,” noting that he was not the only buyer on Taha’a, that there were six or seven operating legally.
Encouraged by this first theft, they repeated the act three times, adding two more people to their ranks, Éric T. and Joseph T. For the second theft, they again steal 100 kilos and 440 kilos in total across their two last expeditions, this time targeting mature vanilla. In total, 640 kilos across four burglaries, with Richard, the preparer, still at the end of the chain.
“You had to close your eyes if you wanted to turn a profit in a market in trouble.”
All acknowledge the facts, but Richard adds a caveat. After expressing his regret for having sustained a “parallel market” explaining that “you had to close your eyes if you wanted to turn a profit in a market in trouble,” he claims to have bought back only “174 kilos” out of the 640. He also denies being the instigator of this business and points to Heifara as the one who contacted him to move the merchandise. He aligns with the police who, at the end of their investigation, indicated that the heads of the network were Heifara and Georges. Nevertheless, some defendants asserted that it was he who told them which plantations to raid, telling them it was easy money and that he was known for buying stolen vanilla.
Asked about his results, he explains that in 2022 he posted a turnover of 98 million, with a profit of 30 million, but that in 2023 his figures fell. “25 million for a profit of 7 to 8 million.” Explanation: “with this story I’m careful about what I buy (…) I’ve harmed the producers; in 20 years in the trade this is the first time I’ve done something like this.”
“I have lost everything; in one night everything was ruined.”
For Me Guilloux, who represents two producers who lost 220 kilos of vanilla each, “this represents a gigantic prejudice, especially since the vanilla was ripe.” The civil party’s lawyer argues too that beyond the theft, the two producers saw their shade houses devastated, the vanilla vines ripped out, and the equipment destroyed. These destructions led to a change of activity for the two victims present at the morning hearing. One switched to beekeeping and the other, retired and a member of Epic Vanilla, confided outside the hearing that he had “lost everything, the motivation, in one night everything was ruined” and that he had stopped entirely. While he encouraged Tahaa’s youth to engage in this sector, “now I don’t believe in it anymore, especially since thefts continue.” He is disheartened, all the more so as he knows Richard well and that the day after the thefts he had contacted all vanilla buyers on Tahaa and Raiatea. “That is what touches me the most.”
The prosecutor, for whom vanilla is “the emblematic heritage of Tahaa,” insists: these thefts have placed many families in difficulty. She also suspects Heifara and Georges of being the “driving forces of this case” and Richard of being “the economic vacuum.” As for the other three, “occasional accomplices.” For Heifara A., “a recidivist organizer,” she requests four years in prison. He was sentenced to three years fixed, a sentence that will be added to the one he is currently serving for drug offenses. For Georges T. she requested four years, including three suspended. He received three years, two suspended.
Richard B., “undoubtedly the mastermind,” who had been requested four years with a suspended sentence, was condemned to three years in prison, two of them suspended with a custody order. Regarding the foot soldiers, Brandon C. was sentenced to two years, including one suspended, the same for Joseph T. As for Éric T., he received 18 months suspended. It should be noted that some will have to pay amounts close to several million, in civil interest and moral damages, as well as for the damage caused to the shade houses.
