Three shot dead in nearly 48 hours. In Marseille, the weekend was particularly bloody, with several homicides concentrated in the sole third arrondissement of the Marseille city in probable settling of accounts. The day after these murders, the police chief of Bouches-du-Rhône Frédérique Camilleri returns to 20 Minutes Marseilles on these facts, and its strategy in the fight against the settling of accounts linked to drug trafficking.
Three people were killed this weekend in the third arrondissement of Marseille. What do you know at this stage of the investigation?
There are two separate facts. In both cases, there are victims who are known to be stupefied, and known to justice in general. What is certain is that there has obviously been, for several weeks, strong tensions around housing estates in the third arrondissement. And we think there is an attempt to take over the Moulin de Mai deal point by Félix-Pyat, who is also in the third. That’s a lot of things that revolve around very local subjects. I would be quite surprised if the events of this weekend were not related to all that. We have no tangible elements at this stage. The PJ is very careful. We felt it coming. We see when it’s tense. Not necessarily shootings. There were also brawls, stabbings… In recent weeks, we have therefore reinforced the presence of the CRS at Moulin de Mai and Gyptis.
These new homicides portend a dark new year…
(She cuts). But no. Actually no. I am not a journalist. I don’t know how to make headlines and that might be better. Today, if I count, in number of deaths related to narcotics trafficking in the Bouches-du-Rhône, I have 25 since the beginning of the year. I’m not talking to you about the classification in settlement of accounts, which was this kind of Grail for everyone, until last year when I said that we were stopping that because it was still very subjective. And I’ve had 52 shootings since the start of the year. If I compare to last year, at the same time, we have more shootings: we had 43. But we had as many deaths at the same time. I don’t want to minimize, but we are on a trend, I would say, which is the top of the average in recent years. You have young people on the deal points, who are the small hands of traffic. They are sometimes minors, moreover. They come from elsewhere than Marseille. They are recruited on social networks and they are brought back here to coal. These are people who are quite vulnerable because they are often broken with their family, settled in squats. What is also certain is that the nature of the shootings has changed a little. We have gone from shootings, twenty years ago, during which the heads of the network tried to eliminate each other. There, we are rather on a burst of deal points. Last year was an “average plus” year. And there, we follow the same trend as last year. And if we continue on this trend, it will not be a very good year.
Isn’t that an acknowledgment of failure?
Each time there is a death, it is an acknowledgment of failure. What do you want me to tell you… The police are there to prevent crimes, solve them and bring the perpetrators to justice. I cannot rejoice that 25 people died this year under the bullets on bottom of drug trafficking. Afterwards, what really pleases me more is to see the activity of the police services. We have never arrested so many traffickers in Marseille since we started. We are still up 30% this year compared to last year when we increased by 30%. And it was the best year since we’ve been doing stats. Those are tangible results. We have never imposed so many fines on consumers. We make more than 1,000 a month in Marseille. We are champions of France, unfortunately, in this area. We have never seized so many weapons. This number has doubled compared to last year. And we are well above the average of previous years. It means that the police officers under my authority are working in unprecedented ways. They have unprecedented results.
We are attacking the entire chain of trafficking, with the bottom of the spectrum: shelling, public roads, the bottom of buildings, dealers, accomplices… We have also worked well on the top of the spectrum. We had some nice arrests last year. And simply, unfortunately, life is not perfect enough. And the fact of working on both the high end of the spectrum and the low end of the spectrum does not only mechanically manage to prevent these assassinations. It’s a much longer-term job, because to stop it, we have to keep doing what we’re doing. But it is necessary, in addition, to carry out investigations which will identify the killers, put them out of harm’s way, by having them condemned, dry up the number of killers and make new people lose the desire to enter the profession. And this, while there is a lot of money.
A recent article from World mentions the sum of 10,000 euros paid to kill competitors…
10,000 euros, I think it’s not much. It can happen, but it’s still not the average, for teams of killers. I think we are more around 40,000 to 50,000 euros. And I will remind you that as long as there is money in the drug trade, we will face people who are ready, thanks to the money, to do anything, and ready to pay very expensive people who will eliminate competitors. And this money, where does it come from? From consumers’ pockets. As long as we don’t make consumers face up to their responsibilities in this chain, we’re also going to have trouble having long-term effects. It is demand that creates supply. Why do clans kill each other? Because there is a lot of money to be made. Why is there a lot of money to be made? Because there are many consumers who are willing to pay to buy their doses. Everything fits.
Do you suddenly feel helpless?
No way. I don’t intend to change the strategy, if that’s the question. She brought results. But I say that to stop the cycles of violence that are linked to narcotics trafficking, there is fundamental work, which will take a lot of time, which consists of drying up the flow of consumers. It is also necessary to dry up the flow of people who are ready to work in the drug trade. These are social phenomena. When you go to the northern districts, look at the environment around you. Look at the degraded copros. Look at the unemployment rate. Look at the lack of public service in some places. And tell yourself that if there are people who stay in the narcotics trade, it’s not to make excuses for them, but it’s also because there is a set of social, economic factors , development, environment, which make it the choice they have. Me, prefect of police, I take my part in the fight. If I didn’t, it would be shocking. We do our part and we don’t say to ourselves every morning: “It’s no use doing it”. We are still quite convinced that if we did nothing, it would be worse. But to believe that only the police will solve this problem is obviously false.