The alleged leader of the “Yoda” clan, one of the main drug trafficking gangs in Marseille (southern France), arrested in March 2024 in Morocco, is in the process of being extradited to France, AFP learned on Monday from sources close to the case.
An extradition agreement was concluded with Morocco to hand over Félix Bingui, 34, to France, according to a source. His return to France should take place on Wednesday, according to another.
Accused of being at the origin of a bloody drug trafficking war in France’s second city, Bingui was arrested on March 8 in Casablanca and was awaiting extradition.
According to one of the sources, the new French Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, worked “discreetly” with his Moroccan counterpart upon his arrival to obtain this agreement.
“Victory against narcobanditism,” Darmanin said Monday on X.
He also recalled that when he was Minister of the Interior, he had obtained the arrest of Bingui, and he thanked “very sincerely the Moroccan authorities for having initiated the extradition process, which will finally allow justice French to judge him.
-Félix Bingui had been arrested on an arrest warrant from a Marseille investigating judge for “importing narcotics by an organized gang, transport, detention, acquisition, transfer of narcotics, criminal association (…) laundering and failure to provide proof of resources” .
In April 2024, during a hearing at the Rabat Court of Cassation, he agreed to be extradited to France. Bingui, who spent his entire “career” in trafficking in Marseille, regularly traveled back and forth to Morocco until the outbreak of a “war” with the rival “DZ Mafia” gang in February 2023, when from which he had never left this Maghreb country.
The turf war between the two gangs for control of lucrative deal points – up to 80,000 euros in daily turnover in certain places – has left Marseille bloody.
In 2023, 49 deaths linked to drug trafficking were recorded there, including seven minors, which was a record.
In 2024, the number of these “narchomicides”, a word created precisely in Marseille, has decreased significantly, to stand at 24.
