Assassinations linked to drug trafficking have fallen by half in the Marseille region. The settling of scores resulted in 24 deaths, including 20 in Marseille, in 2024, compared to 49 in 2023, a sadly record year. This is explained by the end of a bloody war between two Marseille drug trafficking clans, the DZ mafia took over the Yoda clan, but also by the action of the police and judicial authorities The Marseille prosecutor and the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône police presented their findings at a press conference on Tuesday, January 21, and mentioned a mobilization “considerable” against drug banditry.
The DZ mafia clan won the bloody war between it and the Yoda clan. This mechanically reduced the deadly spiral in Marseille. But the drop in settling of scores is also linked to the fierce fight of investigators and magistrates against drug trafficking. “We put a lot of resources into the arrest, specified the Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, mechanically this will reduce the pressure, there were a certain number of score-settling which were foiled.” The prosecutor added: “We noted that a certain number of assassinations were ordered from prison and we grouped together a certain number of criminals, notably in the Baumettes isolation unit, with a very strict prison regime. And there too, mechanically, we felt the drop in settling scores.”
The number of deal points has halved in three years in Marseille. There are only 84 still active in the city, specifies the Bouches-du-Rhône police prefect. Pierre-Édouard Colliex defends the strategy of shelling to asphyxiate these deal points, with the multiplication of “XXL net square” operations, launched with great fanfare by Emmanuel Macron during a trip to the Cité de la Castellane, in the northern districts from Marseille, last March.
But if drug trafficking is less present at the bottom of the towers, it has not disappeared, it is spreading. The police chief says he is fighting in particular against drug deliveries, there have been nearly 180 arrests for “ubershit” in 2024. Another figure proves the mobilization of the authorities: in total, more than 2,000 people have been arrested. examination by Marseille judges last year for cases linked to drug trafficking last year, including 200 for “narchomicides”.
-More and more women are involved in trafficking, whereas they were once confined to the role of “nurses”, to store drugs, money or weapons. They are now climbing the hierarchy, managing logistics. And there are also more and more minors. Half of juvenile delinquency in Marseille is linked to drug banditry, explains prosecutor Nicolas Bessone. In 2024, more than 500 adolescents have been prosecuted for drug trafficking. These “little hands”, these “jobbers” come from all over France, attracted by easy money, what the magistrate describes as “narcotourism”.
Marseille is seen as an Eldorado, but the reality is much darker, warns the prosecutor. Once in drug trafficking networks, these young people often find themselves saddled with fictitious debts, victims of torture and kidnapping. There are cases of human trafficking, warns Nicolas Bessone. Finally, even more worrying, very young adolescents are no longer hired just to lie in wait or to sell drugs, but to kill. For the first time in France, the Marseille children's court is preparing to judge a 15-year-old teenager for the murder of Socayna. This student was the victim of a stray Kalashnikov bullet while she was in her room. A VTC driver was also shot dead in cold blood by a teenager barely 14 years old.
