• The violence of drug trafficking that bloodied Marseille seems to be spreading to other cities and territories.
  • Police officers describe these attempts to conquer new market shares, weapons in hand.
  • With, in filligrane, an increasingly internationalization of teams of traffickers in the process of "cartelization".

From assize trials to settling scores – which have already caused nearly 20 deaths 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 goes beyond the suburbs of the northern districts of the city. In the last two months alone, Arles (three wounded on 18 April), Aix-en-Provence (four wounded on 20 April), Cavaillon (two dead on 1 May), Avignon (two dead on 10 April and 5 May), in other words the great suburbs of Marseille, are not spared by shootings with weapons of war and the settling of scores.

A logic of expansion

But the deaths of the "war of stups" are also 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 akin to settling scores. Further north is in 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 shooting. In a case currently before the Assize Court of Aix, we can learn in the appendix of the procedure that a shooting in Toulouse is attributed to the Marseille team facing the judges. A sinister inventory à la Prévert that could be continued and which raises the question of the influence of Marseille's drug trafficking networks.

"[The networks of] Marseille are trying to expand because the trade is huge," said a police source. The business, whose revenues are estimated at 150 million euros per year for the city of Marseille alone, (three billion for the 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. The difference is that in this informal economy, they are often obtained with weapons in hand. "We know that drug trafficking networks seek to spread over other neighborhoods, other networks, and even other cities. A fairly new phenomenon that dates from the last five years, where previously it was an epiphenomenon, "observes a second source. "At first we squinted on the opposite district, then the neighboring city and today for example, it is Nice that is the subject of a takeover bid of the Marseille networks. On Dijon too, according to the PJ, it would be Marseillais at the maneuver, "he says. A situation that is changing so quickly lately that it becomes difficult even for the PJ to know who is doing what now: "It's moving so much that strong, it's getting confused," 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 ground. "There are also opportunistic effects. Like in Aix recently, where finally it is the only time when they could corner the guy, "continues this source. As in Paris too, where Karim Tir, an ex-bigwig of Marseille networks who was also once 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 Marseille's networks. "We are dealing with real multinationals against which we are trying to fight, but without the means of the DEA [US federal agency for the fight against drug trafficking]," regrets a police officer from Marseille. In addition to the historical links between drug traffickers in Marseille and Morocco, a producer of hashish, the latter "are now developing South American networks for cocaine". Like Ahcen M. a narco from Marseille 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," says our interlocutor. "It leaves you wondering about the abilities of others."

Between financial power and international ramification, this scale raises fears of a "Mexicanization", or even a "cartellization" of Marseille networks. "I don't think so, it would suggest that a single organization has a monopoly on the city. However, the turf wars prove that this is not the case," observes Jean Rivalois, IRD researcher and specialist in South American cartels.

This turf war never ceases to bloody Marseille, with victims and killers more and younger. 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 presented to a judge. "Apparently, it's a team that came from Paris," slips a police intelligence. Proof that if the Marseille networks swarm, seek to expand and export violence, they are also a force of attraction.

  • Society
  • Marseille
  • Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
  • PACA
  • Account settlement
  • Drug trafficking
  • Drug traffickers