From assize trials to settling of scores – which have already killed nearly 20 people this year – unfortunately not a week goes by in Marseille without the violence of drug trafficking networks making the news. A violence that also regularly exceeds the suburbs of the northern districts of the city. Just for the past two months, Arles (three injured on April 18), Aix-en-Provence (four injured on April 20), Cavaillon (two dead on May 1), Avignon (two dead on April 10 and May 5), in other words the greater suburbs of Marseille, are not spared by shootings with weapons of war and the settling of accounts.
A logic of expansion
But the dead of the “narcotics war” can also be counted well beyond the greater Marseille region. In Nice, shootings have become regular. This week, four people were shot dead in Valence (Drôme) with processes that are similar to settling scores. Further north is Besançon, where two men were killed in February. A double homicide for which a Marseillais was arrested. Further south, even abroad, it was in Spain on May 3 that two Marseillais were killed in a shootout. In a case currently before the Assize Court of Aix, we can learn in the appendix to the procedure that a shooting in Toulouse is attributed to the Marseille team facing the judges. A sinister Prévert-style inventory that could be continued and which raises the question of the influence of Marseille drug trafficking networks.
” [Les réseaux de] Marseille are trying to expand because the trade is huge,” remarks a police source. The business, whose revenue is estimated at 150 million euros per year for the city of Marseille alone(three billion for France) is indeed juicy. This puts drug trafficking in terms of turnover at the same level as a company like the Société des Eaux de Marseille, a subsidiary of Veolia. And in a competitive world, conquering new market shares is essential. With the difference that in this informal economy, these are often obtained with arms in hand. “We know that drug trafficking networks seek to spread out over other neighborhoods, other networks, and even other cities. A fairly new phenomenon which dates from the last five years, where before it was an epiphenomenon, ”observes a second source. “At first, we squinted at the neighborhood opposite, then the neighboring town and today, for example, Nice is the subject of a takeover bid by the Marseille networks. In Dijon too, according to the PJ, it would be Marseillais maneuvering, ”he says. A situation that has been changing so quickly lately that it is becoming difficult even for the PJ to know who is doing what at the moment: “It’s moving so hard, it’s getting confusing,” explains our first source. “It’s a long-term job that will take time,” he concludes.
However, we must not see behind each shooting operations of intimidation or attempts to conquer land. “There are also effects of opportunism. Like in Aix recently, where in the end it was the only time they were able to corner the guy, ”continues this source. As in Paris too, where Karim Tir, a former bigwig of the Marseille networks who was also for a time the producer of rapper Jul, was murdered in 2014 in front of a chic hotel. Or even more recently in Spain, as told above.
From Morocco to Colombia
Still, this demonstrates the power of the Marseille networks. “We are dealing with real multinationals against which we are trying to fight, but without the means of the DEA [agence fédérale américaine de lutte contre les trafics de stupéfiants] », Regrets a Marseille policeman. In addition to the historical links that exist between Marseille drug traffickers and Morocco, a hashish producer, the latter “are now developing South American networks for cocaine”. Like Ahcen M., a Marseille drug addict suspected of murder who was arrested in October 2021 on a Colombian island. “And again, it is not a head but the right arm of a small network”, advances our interlocutor. “It makes you wonder about the abilities of others.”
Between financial power and international ramification, this scale raises fears of a “Mexicanization”, even a “cartelization” of the Marseille networks. “I don’t think so, that would suggest that a single organization has a monopoly of its activity over the city. However, the turf wars prove that this is not the case”, observes Jean Rivalois, researcher at the IRD and specialist in South American cartels.
This turf war continues to bloody Marseille, with more and more young victims and killers. In the triple shooting that occurred on April 4 in Marseille, where four men including two teenagers were killed. For one of them, four people were arrested, including an 18-year-old who was brought before a judge. “Apparently, it’s a team that came from Paris”, slips a police information. Proof that if the Marseille networks swarm, seek to expand and export violence, they are also a force of attraction.