One hundred and nineteen people have been arrested, of which more than a hundred have been indicted, since 1 October, in relation to the Marseille drug gang DZ Mafia, following investigations which have demonstrated the diversification of the network, the police and the Marseille prosecutor’s office announced , Saturday 7 December.
The public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone, reported this in a press conference “common sponsors” in two recent emblematic cases: the attack on a vehicle in which the rapper SCH, whose relative had been killed, was suppose to be on, on 26 August outside a nightclub in La Grande-Motte (Hérault) and the extortion against the owner of a nightclub, a restaurant and commercial activities in Marseille.
He said these cases are marked “the extension of the area of activity of this criminal organization” beyond drug trafficking and had made it possible to demonstrate his links with the “conventional banditry” as well as his “ability to project oneself” beyond its region of origin. “The members of the team who attacked the car in which SCH was supposed to be were the same ones who threatened the owner of the nightclub”declared the public prosecutor, who reported forty-four people, of which thirty-one were placed in precautionary custody and thirteen under judicial control, in these two cases “iconic”.
Twenty-three deaths as January
In total, since October 1, eight cases have led to the arrest of one hundred and nineteen people, of whom seventy-three were placed in pre-trial detention and thirty-three under judicial supervision, said the head of the interdepartmental judicial police service. (SIPJ13),Philippe Frizon. “The problems won’t be solved tomorrow morning,but we have the results”welcomed the prosecutor. He confirmed that one of the alleged DZ mafia figures already detained was allegedly involved in recent death threats against Marseille prison director Baumettes and one of her deputies.
Drug trafficking-related violence in the marseille region has resulted in 23 deaths as January, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. By 2023, drug trafficking had claimed the lives of forty-nine people in Marseille, a bloody record against the backdrop of a turf battle between the DZ mafia and another drug trafficking gang, called Yoda, the first to finaly have took over.