Conquest of territories, rackets of traders and the rapper SCH… How the DZ Mafia is transforming and extending its influence

There are those whose iron curtain is riddled with bullets, those whose grocery store was set on fire and those who, for fear of such reprisals, paid 7,000 euros, as shown in the major report in Marseille by the JT de 8 p.m. on TF1, visible at the top of this article. These small traders are the new targets, in increasing numbers, of extortion attempts by the DZ Mafia, a sprawling criminal organization now racketeering in all directions in the Marseille city. “It's getting worse and worse… If from now on it concerns businesses, it's starting to get serious.”testifies a resident. “That obviously worries me. When we are with the children, we are afraid of getting caught by a stray bullet, like that, for free”adds a mother.

“There are no boundaries for the DZ Mafia”

“The DZ Mafia is diversifying its activities, just like a company that seeks to grow by multiplying its sources of income”confides a police source, on condition of anonymity. A diversification of activities which rhymes with diversification of targets: according to our information, over the last three months, a nightclub in the city center, far from the northern districts, received a visit from an armed and hooded commando, while the rapper Marseille SCH, in concert at La Grande-Motte, saw his team come under fire, killing one of his relatives, as he left the room, because the artist had refused to pay the hundreds of thousands of euros demanded by the organized gang. Which claimed responsibility for each of these attacks.

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“We are dealing with racketeering or extortion, which goes so far as to leave one dead and one seriously injured in the entourage of the rapper SCH. There are no borders for the DZ Mafia, we can see that they can go very far in their actions”poses in front of our camera Bruno Bartocetti, general secretary of the southern zone of the national police union SGP Unit. Written almost everywhere on neighborhood walls, highlighted in the group's press releases or even engraved on the skin of victims left for dead: the name “DZ Mafia” ended up being declined and distributed as a brand.

The organization now owns the vast majority of the “drug centers” in Marseille. “In the Cité de la Paternalelle (in the 14th arrondissement, editor’s note) for example, there was a deal point that the DZ took over. Well then, they wanted to expand and as a result, they attacked the others deal points all around. It went from there.”details anonymously a police officer from the Bac Nord of Marseille, whose patrols struggle to cross the piles of garbage set up to obstruct and to surprise the vigilance of the numerous lookouts. Then the officer describes the modus operandi, which has become a trademark, of this conquest of territories: “It's the stroller system. A guy enters a city and he shoots in the air everywhere, to say that they are now home.” This is confirmed by the amateur images included in the TF1 video above.

In the wake of this expansion, the group, with its notoriety, recruited new members in order to further swell its ranks. “We have a lot of people, especially undocumented immigrants, who come from all over France, not just from the surrounding towns”enlightens another Marseille police officer. Julien, the only member of Bac Nord to have agreed to answer us openly, specifies: “When you blow a deal point, for them, it's nothing. They have the means to restock the product within ten minutes. It doesn't hurt them. They have a lot of money, which “They are reinvesting in better quality products, in weapons, too.

No consolidated figures make it possible to precisely quantify the fortune of this French-style cartel, but the police estimate that each deal point brings in up to 80,000 euros per day. A financial strike force which allows the DZ Mafia to today extend its influence well beyond the south of France. And even beyond our borders, to Brussels. “Belgium is located in the center of Europe and offers fairly easy access to the cocaine market. There are established links with the DZ Mafia, which comes here to obtain supplies, obtain weapons or transfer money “assures Ine Van Wymersch, the national drugs commissioner. Which makes Pierre-Édouard Colliex, police prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, say that beyond the daily “clearance” operations, “we really need to be able to hit all levels and all forms of traffic” to turn it off.