“Trafficking continues to ruin the lives of residents”: half as many deaths in Marseille, but trafficking is evolving and resisting

“In 2024, we arrested 3,400 individuals linked to drug trafficking in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, that is to say 40% more than in 2023,” said Pierre-Edouard Colliex, prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône police, during a press point organized this Tuesday, January 21.

Rejuvenation of the perpetrators, multiplication of operators, significant seizures… If the results for the year 2024 of the action of the State services against narco banditry in Marseille and in the department are on the whole positive, with in particular 4,000 tonnes of bulky items collected to “damage deal points in the cities concerned”the department's police chief says that the “work must be done on consumers” in 2025.

“In the end, the police win”

“Traffic continues to ruin the lives of residents, 58 police officers and 42 gendarmes were injured in 2024 as part of the fight against drug trafficking”, deplores Pierre-Edouard Colliex.

Despite everything, the police chief declared that “everyone must know that in the end, it is the police who win.” He cites as proof the number of cocaine seizures increasing in 2024. On January 13, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, put forward the figure of 47 tonnes of cocaine seized in the first 11 months of the year, which is twice as much as the previous year.

In addition, a quarter of deal points have been eradicated from public roads since 2020 in France, and more than 40% in Bouches-du-Rhône. “In total, in 2024, 3,400 people involved in trafficking were arrested in the department,” reports Pierre-Edouard Colliex, i.e. 40% more arrests compared to 2023.

In 2024, 20,000 consumers were also fined a fixed tort fine. An action that the police chief promises to continue. “The consumer is the accomplice of the worst criminals in this country”he says.

Henchmen recruited younger and younger

In 2024, the department's police chief observes progress in 2024 in the fight against narchomicides – they were halved during the year, going from 42 in 2023 to 24 in 2024 -, “the threat remains very significant” .

Pierre-Edouard Colliex underlines the “historic mobilization” of the forces of law and order and justice to fight against this form of “narcoterrorism”, which has enabled the arrest of more than 2,000 people in Marseille in 2024, including “282 traffickers high spectrum

On the little hands of traffic, more than 2,250 people were referred, with still so many “jobbers” coming from all over France, attracted by the mirage of easy money. Among them, more and more minors. With 512 minors prosecuted in 2024, “more than half of juvenile delinquency” is linked to drugs in Marseille, the prosecutor is alarmed. Young people, increasingly violent, “recruited on social networks for small sums”.