A little-known but very real saga of French organized crime, accompanied by anecdotes and revelations on classified investigations then recently relaunched: this is what offers "Maghreb Connection", a book co-written by Brendan Kemmet and Stéphane Sellami, two former journalists of the Parisian specializing in various facts, which leaves at Robert Laffont this Thursday.
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Over the 400 pages, we discover the grip, then the expansion of criminals from the Maghreb within the Parisian environment. "It is not a question of stigmatizing these French of North African origin who have poured into banditry, specify the authors. Quite the contrary. This book places their influence and action on the chessboard of organized crime. It is not a question of making their eulogy either. But the saga of these children of immigrants, who rose through the ranks of banditry before today taking the reins through the narco-banditism of the cities, had never been told at length. "
Among the characters highlighted in "Maghreb Connection", a man considered "a legend of organized crime" holds a good place: Mohamed Amimer. An old-fashioned robber who expresses himself for the first time, in this book, on an incredible episode in his career as a criminal: his escape from Nîmes prison in the summer of 2000. Described as “a guy above of the standard, he was one of the smarter thugs ”, according to the comments collected by the authors of the work from various sources.
Born of an Algerian father and a Moroccan mother, Mohamed Amimer grew up in the city of La Boissière, in Noisy-le-Sec (Seine-Saint-Denis), in the 1960s. hope to become pro before falling for a burglary in Chelles (Seine-et-Marne).
He was only 17 at the time.
His accomplice, nicknamed James Dean, manages to escape.
Incarcerated for the first time, “little Momo” sees his football dreams fade away.
"In prison, I went to crime school, when I was thinking of going into professional football," he said later.
Beginnings alongside the elite of the underworld
Above all, he entered “the profession” by rubbing shoulders with the elite of the Parisian milieu, used to a bistro, Le Saint-Ex, in Rosny-sous-Bois. An unmissable place where the members of the gang from the southern suburbs and a certain Titi Peltier, feared robber and future "trainer" of the rising generation, headed by Amimer, gathered. The latter gets his hands on PTT agencies, as we used to say at the time. Before falling back into the nets of the police with two convictions in the assizes, of eight years each, in the wake. Known in the community under the nickname "Grand Momo", he quickly aggregates around him other young thugs from the suburbs. Before joining forces with a formidable sibling, coming from the community of sedentary travelers, near Montreuil: Jean-Claude, Mario and Marc Hornec,described as the godfathers of the Parisian underworld.
Post offices, banks, luxury hotels… The list of cases in which the members of this gang, always postiched, are suspected of having taken part is growing. Amimer, renamed the Elegant, refined his technique and began to spy on the police… who were supposed to watch him! He raises the plates and models of their vehicles to better slip between their hands on the return of his "blows". This will be the case in May 1994 after a spectacular robbery in Perpignan. The day before, the director of the premises was kidnapped at his home by men who had passed themselves off as police officers. The robbers flee with 6.7 million francs (1.4 million euros) in their pockets. To cross a toll, the Elegant and his accomplices, fluorescent orange armbands around the arm, use a Renault Safrane,"Equipped with a flashing light and a Police sun visor" and equipped with "doublettes of the license plates of the vehicles of the specialized brigades" responsible for their tracking!
Then comes the biggest breakage of 1994 in Ile-de-France.
In mid-July, a bank, located a stone's throw from the Paris Opera, sees its coffers emptied in the blink of an eye by four gangsters, very well informed.
The latter seize a booty estimated at 4.2 million euros.
In 2017, Mohamed Amimer, betrayed by a cigarette butt, was sentenced to five years in prison, with an accomplice, for these facts that he has always denied.
In August 2000, the Elegant escaped in underpants and cross-country shoes
The man also wanted to give himself a legal showcase: he popularized raï music in France and opened his own nightclub, the Triangle, in Andilly (Val-d'Oise) in the early 1990s. But in February 1996, put involved in the attack on Perpignan, the Elegant was arrested, then sentenced to sixteen years of criminal imprisonment. But the one who is nicknamed "the Rolls-Royce of the run" will not stay long behind bars. On August 25, 2000, "it is precisely 9 o'clock [when he] sprints, dressed in a simple slip and cross-country shoes, in the walking yard of the Nîmes remand center", write the authors. of "Maghreb Connection". Amimer had undressed to avoid clinging to the barbed wire of the prison, before climbing a ladder held out by his accomplices.The Elegant will even push the daring to reach a hideout, located just in front of the headquarters of the judicial police of Montpellier ... before leaving France for Algeria.
His flight will end on October 18, 2004, near the Lilacs.
Homesickness and the lack of money pushed Amimer to return to Seine-Saint-Denis.
He then decides to pull over.
“The next time I get out of prison, it will be through the front door,” he blurted out in front of the investigators, who are already betting on his next escape.
But the man kept his word.
In May 2010, he left the Poissy plant (Yvelines) and has never fallen back since.
Mohamed Amimer converted to organizing shows in detention, worked for the reintegration of detainees and even supported a young candidate for the municipal election in Noisy-le-Sec in 2014.
Other highlights of the "Maghreb Connection"
Mohamed Amimer is not the only one to be talked about in the book by Brendan Kemmet and Stéphane Sellami, which traces several cases of organized crime that have made the headlines in recent decades, especially in Ile-de-France.
Take a look back at some of these remarkable stories.
August 14-15, 1976,
at 26, rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile (Paris), Société Générale branch.
Barely a month after the resounding break-up of Nice, bis repetita on the Ile Saint-Louis.
After going through the sewers, a team of "termites", probably led by Titi Peltier, "trainer" of young shoots from the suburbs, digs a tunnel 5 meters long in order to reach the bank's vault room.
The authors of this money in the basement will never be identified.
November 11, 1980,
2:30 a.m., at 4, avenue Trudaine (Paris), restaurant La Médina. Three strangers, armed with big guns, burst in the middle of a feverish card game. Lined up against a wall, two players are shot twice in the head. Including a certain Marcel Bennacer, known as “Nénesse” or “le Grand”, 36 years old. A future size of the Parisian underworld, killer of the Zemour brothers, son of a Kabyle trader and a Parisian.
July 19, 1994,
6 a.m., rue Saint-Augustin (Paris), bank Inchauspé. Three robbers lead an employee, held since the night before at his home, in the strong room of this establishment. The trio left with a colossal loot: 20 million in francs, yen, dollars, Swiss francs and deutschemark. It is the biggest breakage of the year 1994 in Ile-de-France. It is for this heist that Mohamed Amimer will be sentenced, twenty-three years later, in the company of an accomplice, to five years in prison. He has always denied his participation in this robbery.
September 27, 2000,
3:10 p.m., 8, rue d'Artois (Paris), café-PMU l'Artois Club. Francis Vanverberghe, alias Francis the Belgian, 54, legend of organized crime, is executed with nine 11.43 caliber bullets while he is quietly seated. The police officers of the criminal brigade first suspect the rising generation from the cities, before getting lost in conjectures. The perpetrators of this assassination have never been identified.
May 27, 2001,
2 p.m., Fresnes prison (Val-de-Marne). Two prison inmates, Christophe Khider and Mounir Benbouabdellah, sentenced to long sentences, take three guards hostage, then a police commissioner, after an abortive escape attempt by helicopter. Mounir Benbouabdellah, nicknamed "Blond", from the city of Banana in the 20th arrondissement, will be the first to surrender. After twenty hours of anguish, his sidekick will do the same.
December 15, 2003,
2 a.m., rue de Berri (Paris). Nordine Nasri, alias “Nono le Barge” or “Nordo”, 33, a shooting star of organized crime in the Ile-de-France region, is killed after being strafed with ten 9-millimeter Luger bullets. His bodyguard is seriously injured. Both had just spent the evening at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, a strip club a stone's throw from the Champs-Elysées. His killers, who arrived on motorbikes, have never been found.