From our special correspondent in Marseille
A major police operation was launched this Monday morning in the Castellane district of Marseille , Le Figaro
noted
.
At 10 a.m., several dozen police officers invaded the city, emblematic of the drug trafficking which is undermining France's second city.
The territorial units are supported by two Republican Security Companies (CRS) responsible for securing this “powder keg”, where several major deal points are located.
Accompanied by dog teams specializing in the detection of narcotics and weapons, the police launched identity checks at the request of the public prosecutor's office and began a thorough search of cars, common areas and cellars of the city, considered by a senior official as the
“most active in terms of trafficking”
and
“continuing to pose major public order problems”
.
One of the last shocks dates back to December 25, when Nordine Achouri, alias “Nono”, local drug baron, was shot dead in the street with a wad of money in his pockets.
Also readMarseille: who was “Nono”, the drug lord shot dead in the street on Christmas Eve?
Located between the 15th and 16th arrondissements, at the north-west end of the city, which makes it one of the furthest from the center of Marseille, the city of Castellane, often referred to as the hottest in France, is already the object of daily “shelling” by the police.
The thugs are targeted there as part of “Place Nette” operations aimed at shaking up the entire local delinquent ecosystem to “clean up” for the Olympics and for the years that follow.
Hot background
Built near a motorway junction used by consumers, the Castellane remains in the eyes of the police a “big carrier” which irrigates all the northern districts of the Marseille city.
“Traffickers in the sector have always shown great resilience
,” a police officer recently told Le
Figaro
.
Despite repeated attacks since 2010 and the very symbolic demolition in 2019 of the “K Tower”, a historic deal point located at the entrance to the city and which generated up to 60,000 euros in profit per day, the narcocaids have continued to regenerate on the basis of settling scores.
This operation, carried out for a long time with the greatest discretion, takes place in a burning context.
On March 7, the city's highest magistrates raised a cry of alarm before the Senate commission of inquiry dedicated to the fight against drug trafficking in France.
“We are losing the war against traffickers in Marseille
,” warned Isabelle Fort, head of the “organized crime” department of the Marseille prosecutor’s office.
“Narcobanditism acts in Marseille as a sort of gangrene which damages the social fabric,”
said the president of the Marseille judicial court Olivier Leurent, during hearings held the day before in Paris.
“The State seems to be waging an asymmetrical war against narco-banditry but finds itself weakened in the face of very equipped organized gangs
,” he added.
80,000 euros turnover per day
Determined never to let down its guard, the PJ reacted with two spectacular raids.
On March 9, Félix Bingui, the alleged leader of the Yoda clan, one of the main drug gangs in Marseille which used this Star Wars character smoking a “joint” as its emblem, was arrested in Casablanca, Morocco, where he lived in hiding to avoid falling under bullets.
Four days later, the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime (Oclco) of the PJ arrested in Marseille, Rennes and the Hautes-Alpes a commando of thirteen members, including three women, from the rival clan of the DZ Mafia which had crossed the Pyrenees to target a Marseille rival on January 24, 2023, in Empuriabrava, Spain.
Ten of them, aged 15 to 25, were indicted last Saturday for an assassination attempt.
“Bravo to the police for this new crackdown on Marseille drug banditry
,” wrote the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on X.
Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone, for his part, estimated that
“these arrests, which come after 14 months of intensive and careful investigation, are a new illustration of the excellent Franco-Spanish police and judicial cooperation”
.
The year 2023 was the bloodiest with 49 people killed, including four collateral victims, and 123 injured in the turf war between rival gangs.
Nearly 80% of these “narchomicides” are directly attributable to the rivalry between the Yoda clan, which is now said to be moribund, and that of the DZ Mafia for control of juicy deal points.
Some, Pascal Bonnet, deputy to the PJ in the south of France, confided last January, can generate a daily turnover of close to 80,000 euros.
That's a mountain of cash for which no holds barred, even if the surge of violence that has gripped the city has stalled a bit with "only" three settlements since the start of the year.
According to our information, the operation launched at Castellane on Monday aims to “put the lid” on trafficking.
A gendarmerie helicopter, equipped with a searchlight and cameras, is planned to complete this system which should last several days.