Drug trafficking in Ile-de-France and more widely throughout France generates profits estimated at between three and six billion euros per year.
With such numbers, the stakes are so high that drug traffickers use the same methods as actors in the legal economy to manage their businesses and improve their performance.
The central direction of the judicial police estimated at the beginning of the year that in 2020, subcontracting has become more than a trend with the creation of “sectors” and “specialized professions” in criminal activities, linked to narco-banditry.
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"Groups compartmentalize and delegate their activities more and more," said a judicial police commissioner.
Drug traffickers are organizing themselves better and better in the transport of narcotics, the resale of the goods or even the physical elimination of their competitors ”.
In 2020 in France, police and customs investigators seized ninety-six tons of cannabis and just over thirteen tons of cocaine, which is just ten percent of what arrives at destination.
Using carriers minimizes risk
On the drug routes, traffickers turn to service providers. The vast majority of cannabis comes from Morocco. It is transported by tonnes in trucks, passing through Spain where sales are made, on the Costa del Sol, by traders. Cocaine produced in South America arrives from Spain via Africa. It is also delivered ‚incorporates thanks to the Guyanese mules from Orly (Val-de-Marne). But it mainly enters France by tonnes in containers via major European ports. “Holland is a hotbed of continental traffic. Some buyers now go to this country to pay for narcotics and come back to France empty. They are delivered by logisticians either in Belgium or directly in France. "
This method makes it possible to limit the risks of control and ultimately the loss of the goods during transport.
In Spain, traffickers are now responsible for delivering the product to the homes of their French correspondents.
And a good example of their ability to adapt, in the Basque Country, locals who know the mountains like the back of their hand, were even recruited to move trucks stranded at the Spanish border for a few days at the start of the health crisis.
Teams of dealers from 93 strengthen local groups in the provinces
On deal points, the recruitment of salespeople or lookouts from outside their “territory” is now commonplace. In Sète, for example, families called on dealers from Saint-Denis (Seine-de-Saint-Denis) and other clans from Marseillais. The goal is to strengthen their teams in terms of deals and to have more control over their territories. "It's as simple as that," remarks a specialized police officer, "traffickers sometimes lack manpower. In Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), dealers from Seine-Saint-Denis were recruited by drug traffickers from the Izards district to compensate for the desertion of lookouts who were afraid of being killed during the settling of scores ”. This staff is recruited through alliances between clans but also through social networks.These temporary recruits are paid weekly or monthly and accommodated in hotels or rental apartments.
Increased employment of contract killers
The employment of contract killers has increased.
This recourse to the “know-how” of these specialized triggers allows criminal groups to develop their base.
The sicaires, paid 100,000 euros by contract, have real logistics to commit homicides: the thefts upstream of large engines dedicated to settling accounts and the use of different accommodation, are intended to hamper the action of the services from police.
“Professional killers set up ambushes that are carefully prepared.
They use beacons that they place under the victims' cars, from dedicated weapons, such as the Kalashnikov rifle, to devastating projectiles that literally cut targets to pieces, ”explains a PJ investigator.
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Elimination is always carried out against the backdrop of a desire to extend power or territory, to weaken an opposing clan in a context of vendetta.
The judicial police noted for example that traffickers from Nîmes (Gard) had appealed to assassins domiciled in Pas-de-Calais in January and February 2020. In Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), a team of Bulgarians was recruited to take back deal points just like in Besançon (Doubs) where a team from Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) came to lend a hand to local traffickers.