Marseille: nearly 50 deaths linked to drug trafficking in 2023
Published on 12/21/2023 at 08:45 | Updated 12/21/2023 at 09:54
Both the victims and their killers are getting younger and younger.
The Marseille public prosecutor unveils the 2023 report on narcobanditry on Thursday, December 21. Nearly 50 people have died this year in the Marseille city.
Drug trafficking has never caused so much bloodshed in Marseille. Nearly 50 people have died this year, according to provisional figures, many of them teenagers and at least four collateral victims.
Since January, 47 people have lost their lives there, according to an AFP count . Much more than the two previous “records” of 2022 and 2016, which left around thirty dead.
The public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone, reveals during a press conference Thursday, December 21 at 5 p.m., the results for the year 2023 “of narchomicides and narcobanditism”.
“90% of homicides linked to trafficking this year are the consequence of the vendetta between two clans who kill each other ,” explained the Bouches-du-Rhône police chief, Frédérique Camilleri.
“The two leaders of these criminal organizations are not on site but probably abroad, so that they are difficult to neutralize by the services or their enemies ,” confided Dominique Abbenanti, the head of the Marseille judicial police, clairvoyant there the explanation of “these conflicts (which) drag on forever” .
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Killed “in her room, in her pajamas”
In this war for the 91 deal points still present in France's second city, which can bring in several tens of thousands of euros per day, a new form of crime has appeared, and a term: "narchomicide", invented by the former prosecutor of Marseille.
The victims are increasingly younger, like their killers, a phenomenon that is found elsewhere in Europe. “Hit killers whose recruitment is carried out via social networks” , supports an investigator, on condition of anonymity. These teenagers from all over France are attracted by the mirage of easy money but often find themselves trapped in a spiral of debt to the more or less fictitious network, violence and even torture. When they don't die.
In 2023, the toll is very heavy. There are four collateral victims, including the student Socayna killed in September . “My daughter was shot in the head in her bedroom, in her pajamas. Who can explain this? » , called out his mother, Layla.
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A “Mexicanization” of Marseille
In recent weeks, several raids have taken place, notably at the beginning of December, when around twenty people "likely to belong to the DZ Mafia" , one of the two clans, according to the prosecution, were indicted and a dozen imprisoned.
In the corridors of the courthouse, some speak of the beginning of "Mexicanization" , others evoke the Camorra in Naples at the beginning of the 2000s. The Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, advocates the creation of an offense of mafia association .
“Crime is not out of control, but it is not under control either ,” believes Jean-Baptiste Perrier, professor of private law and criminal sciences at the University of Aix-Marseille.
