Le Figaro Marseille
It is a long-term hunt, carried out jointly by the French and Spanish authorities and resulting in the arrest of numerous Marseille criminals now presumed to be out of harm's way.
These very well-organized criminals from the DZ Mafia are suspected of having carefully prepared the assassination of two drug traffickers belonging to the rival Yoda camp on the other side of the Pyrenees, in Spain.
The victims, known to the police and justice services for drug trafficking in Marseille, were murdered in May 2023 while they were in Salou, a peaceful seaside resort located in the south of Catalonia.
There, they were shot with several Kalashnikov bullets by a group of killers coming straight from the Marseille city.
Quickly identified, the commando was finally dismantled by the French and Spanish authorities after a long and rigorous international investigation involving numerous police and judicial services.
Le Figaro
takes stock of this extraordinary affair in detail during a press point organized this Monday by the Marseille prosecutor's office.
Facts
On May 3, 2023, two French nationals known for drug trafficking were brutally murdered in front of a hotel in Salou, Spain, by a very determined commando of killers.
The two victims, already known to French justice for their link with Marseille drug banditry, succumbed to their injuries, one of them dying before help arrived and the other the next day.
The Catalan police did not take long to track down the killers, whose car was located on a motorway rest area heading towards the French border.
One of them, attempting to set fire to the vehicle which had been used to settle the score, was arrested and placed in police custody.
Inside this stolen automobile was a veritable arsenal of war: two pistols, a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle and two grenades.
Warned of the facts and the identity of the victims, the French authorities quickly understood that this deadly and well-prepared expedition aimed to bring down two rival targets of the DZ Mafia, this Marseille criminal organization known for its control of numerous deal points in the Marseille city and whose war with the rival Yoda gang is at the origin of 73% of narchomicides or attempted gang homicides organized in Marseille in 2023.
The progress of the Franco-Spanish investigation
Seized of the facts at the same time as the Spanish justice system, the Marseille prosecutor's office then quickly signed an agreement with a Spanish investigating judge via one of the specialized interregional courts (JIRS) to form a team of Franco-Spanish investigators.
The central office for the fight against organized crime (OCLCO) and the Marseille judicial police were dispatched on the French side to carry out the investigation, soon joined by the criminal investigation division of the Generality of Catalonia.
A judicial investigation was then opened for "
assassinations by an organized gang
", "
theft and receiving stolen goods by an organized gang
", "
violation of weapons legislation, "use of false plate
" and "
participation in a criminal association
" before two judges of French education.
The investigations led investigators to understand that the victims did indeed belong to the Yoda gang, and that the killers had prepared the attack from France before going down to Spain themselves to carry out their assassination plan.
Cooperation between the two countries led French investigators straight to numerous protagonists with well-defined roles.
Thirteen people were finally arrested last week, a few months after crossing the border separating them from France.
Characteristics of the criminal group
Among those arrested were several people aged 19 to 55, the majority of whom were aged between 20 and 25.
A significant and “
new
” fact according to the Marseille prosecutor’s office: eight of the thirteen people arrested during the dragnet were women.
According to the public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone, the latter are notably suspected of having exfiltrated the killers when they found themselves in difficulty by the Catalan police, and one of them is even suspected of having given the green light to the shooters from Salou.
Five of these women were indicted, and two of them were placed in pre-trial detention at the end of their police custody.
On the men's side, we find three members of the commando sent to Spain, but also a “
logistician
” based in France.
These four individuals were already involved in other cases of assassinations or attempted assassinations carried out in the name of the DZ Mafia.
In total, nine of the thirteen arrested were referred at the end of last week by the two French investigating judges.
Four people were released, their responsibility in this affair having “not
yet been determined
”.
The aftermath of the affair
During a press conference with representatives of the French and Catalan police, the public prosecutor of Marseille welcomed the “
excellent
” cooperation between the Franco-Spanish services.
“
It is important to hammer home it and show it: international cooperation is one of the keys to resolving these crimes
,” he explained.
“
These criminals do not stop at the Pyrenean border.
This excellent cooperation seems to me to be the future of the fight against organized crime
,” he said.
The prosecutor took the opportunity to draw up several observations: the youth of the alleged perpetrators, whose average age does not exceed twenty, the "
feminization
" of these criminal organizations as well as the probable end of a "
sequence
" at the end of which one of the organizations would probably have gained the upper hand over the other, putting a temporary end to narchomicides in Marseille.
“
In this war that began in 2023, the month of May 2023 is at its peak: an organization was then capable of assassinating eminent members of the opposing clan abroad
,” detailed Nicolas Bessone.
“
For a whole period until the fall, we had two or three assassinations or assassination attempts per week in Marseille.
Since the waves of arrests carried out from October 2023, we have observed two assassinations in December.
Fortunately, we have not suffered phenomena of this nature since
,” he added, still describing a “
fragile
” situation.
“
The figures don’t lie, but we can have two analyses.
Is there a drop in settling scores due to lack of fighters?
I remain resolutely optimistic and I think that the proactive action of my prosecution, the investigating judges and the judicial police on the ground have had a positive effect,”
he concluded.
As a reminder, around fifty people died last year in Marseille as a result of a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking, and it is established that thirty-five of them were the result of rivalry between the DZ Mafia and Yoda.