A few weeks after the launch of the “XXL square net” operation in the Marseille city, it is a hard blow for the Marseille anti-drug police. On Thursday April 4, while police vehicles were set on fire during the night in front of a Félyx-Piat police station, the anti-narcotics office of the Marseille judicial police saw investigators from the IGPN, the police force, arrive. Indeed, an investigation was opened for suspicion of corruption, as revealed The Parisian this Thursday.
What suspicions are placed on the Marseille branch of the anti-narcotics office?
The investigation was opened in January for suspicions “in particular of corruption”. It follows, according to information from Parisian, to a report from the direction of the judicial police itself. “It’s the hierarchy that has brought up things that deserve verification,” “we’re not hiding anything, it’s rather beneficial,” an anonymous police source also insists to AFP. She mentions “things that seemed strange” during an investigation,” and adds: “If there was a deviation, we have to see what kind of deviation and it can only be individual. »
This investigation would, however, target a group of investigators. During their search, the IGPN seized telephones and computers from the premises of the anti-narcotics office. There is, at this stage, no custody in this case, the details of which we do not yet know. Asked by 20 minutes, the police headquarters refers it to the public prosecutor’s office. He, for his part, refused to comment.
What is the role of this anti-narcotics office?
“Fighting against trafficking means fighting all related crimes, criminal violence, kidnapping, homicides, with traffickers ready to use weapons of war. » President of the French anti-narcotics office, this is how Stéphanie Cherbonnier explains in an interview with RMC the role of Ofast. This interministerial structure, created on January 1, 2020, took over from the Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Drug Trafficking, splashed by scandals over its methods and those of its former boss François Thierry. The role of Ofast therefore: to ensure that the judicial police, gendarmerie and customs speak to each other and coordinate their actions to fight against drug trafficking. Like 12 other territorial branches, that of Marseille is attached to the general direction of the national police.
Why does this affair resonate strongly with a certain Marseille context?
This search takes place in a Marseille context marked by a record year 2023 in the number of deaths linked to narco-banditry, but also a judicial management not hiding its concerns in the face of “low-intensity corruption” in the police or justice, a source of leaks and nullities of procedures. “We must be clear: the battle is lost,” declared prosecutor Nicolas Bessone in November, before the parliamentary commission of inquiry into drug trafficking in France. Comments which provoked the anger of the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti.
In Marseille, which also experienced the BAC Nord affair, two other investigations are underway, concerning officials suspected of having provided information to members of organized crime. In a January interview with Worldthe head of the IGPN, Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre indicates that between 2021 and 2022, the number of corruption investigations carried out by the IGPN has almost doubled, from 30 to 56.
This can be explained by “better detection but, also, it must not be denied, an objective increase in the facts”, she explained. On the profile of the civil servants implicated, “they are varied but the common denominator is very clear, it is the lure of gain”, she also affirmed, before continuing: “It can manifest itself through a need for urgent money or with regard to an addiction but also, sometimes, out of pure greed. This may involve corruption, favoritism, violation of the secrecy of the investigation or consultation of files. »