Laurent Emmanuelli, considered by the police to be the leader of one of the 25 criminal gangs active in Corsica, was arrested on Friday morning in Bastia as he got off a plane from Paris, AFP learned from sources close to the case. He was apprehended by a large police force, a source close to the case told AFP, confirming a report by Corse-Matin.
According to a confidential memo from the national police dating from March 2022 and seen by AFP, the 32-year-old man is considered by the authorities to be close to the Moretti brothers and a potential "support" for the Orsoni clan in Balagne (Haute-Corse). He was arrested in Morocco in August 2021 and detained for extradition to France "under warrants for murder, extortion and attempted murder," according to the document.
In May 2019, he was suspected of having tried to attack Dominique "Mimi" Costa with Antoine Francisci, his 22-year-old right-hand man, who had been killed that day at the wheel of a buggy in the early hours of the morning in Pietralba, about fifteen kilometers from Moltifao, the stronghold of the Costa family, active in the heart of the island's banditry. He had been killed by several shotgun shots.
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'Pre-emptive self-defence'
One of the investigators' hypotheses was that Dominique Costa may have learned of the two men's plan to attack him and that he would have applied a form of "preventive self-defence", sources close to the investigation told AFP in July 2020. This clan war seemed to be based on a "struggle of spheres of influence between an established group and the rising generation" embodied by Laurent Emmanuelli. It had also led to two attempts to settle scores, in February and June 2020, in L'Ile-Rousse.
Laurent Emmanuelli, a suspect in these cases, was known at the time for "concealed work, threats, bomb attacks and violation of the legislation on games by an organized gang," according to these sources. After the death of his right-hand man, Laurent Emmanuelli was suspected by the authorities of having fled abroad, which was later confirmed by his arrest in Morocco. His arrest on Friday comes as part of investigations by the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Marseille, in charge of organized crime cases, as well as as part of a judicial investigation by an investigating judge in Bastia, a source close to the case told AFP.