250 police officers deployed, 20 people arrested

New large-scale police operation early this morning in Nîmes. 24 people were targeted by the police. More than 200 police officers were hired. It comes three months after the death of young Fayed, 10 years old, in the Pissevin district, plagued by drug trafficking.

It is an unprecedented police operation which began this Monday, November 20, 2023 in Nîmes and more widely in the Gard department. 250 police officers, including members of the Raid, the BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade), the Departmental Security and the CRS 8 among others are deployed on site for a wave of arrests linked to drug trafficking. 24 people, some of whom are suspected of being at the head of the networks, are targeted by this unprecedented police operation, deployed in particular in the Wagner gallery in the Pissevin district in Nîmes.

“20 individuals have already been arrested and taken into police custody since 6 a.m. this Monday morning,” specifies Cécile Gensac, prosecutor of Nîmes. Several searches carried out by departmental security in Gard as part of coordinated operations from July to November led to the seizure of 8 kilos of cannabis herb, 7 kilos of cannabis resin, 1.3 kilos of cocaine , 500 sachets of ecstasy and several thousand euros of cash as well as firearms”, adds the head of the Nîmes public prosecutor’s office, present on site at the time of the searches with two other magistrates responsible for drug trafficking and organized crime.

On site, during searches, the police also seized a large stock of nitrous oxide canisters.

“We are not abandoning the residents of the Pissevin district. We are here to restore the law and public services. The delinquents should know that we will not let them go. It is a market that abhors a vacuum. We are here to harass deal points”hammered Jérôme Bonet, prefect of Gard, present this morning in the Pissevin district.

This large-scale police operation comes after a large-scale raid in Nîmes and Marseille last week. The PJ police officers from Montpellier and the research and intervention brigades (BRI) from Marseille and Montpellier intervened as part of the investigation opened for assassination by an organized gang and other offenses linked to organized crime, and entrusted to the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Marseille (Jirs), responsible for the fight against organized crime.

Saturday November 18, during a press conference, the public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone specified that eight men aged 18 to 30 from Nîmes, Marseille and Paris had been placed in pre-trial detention.

These arrests come three months after the death of Fayed, a 10-year-old boy, shot in the back while returning home with his uncle on the evening of August 21 in the Pissevin district of Nîmes.

The vehicle of this family from Mayotte had been the target of bullets from a Kalashnikov type weapon, fired from a Renault Mégane in which there were four hooded individuals. In total, around fifty shell casings were found.

The family had no connection to drug trafficking and the make of the uncle’s car may have made the shooters believe otherwise.

The Marseille prosecutor explained on Saturday that the facts had occurred in a “context of war for an appropriation of the territory and point of deal between the city of Pissevin” and other districts of Nîmes. The Pissevin district would have suffered an attack from traffickers from Mas de Mingue and Valdegour (other towns in Nîmes), who would be supported by traffickers from Marseille: the DZ Mafia.