According to information from BFMTV, the victim of the automatic rifle shots on Thursday, August 22, was well known for his involvement in drug trafficking, with two indictments in 2019 and 2021. He was the manager of the shisha bar in which he was shot.
In Marseille, a forty-year-old man was shot dead in front of a shisha bar in the 2nd arrondissement on Thursday, August 22, around 11:45 p.m. The prosecutor’s office indicated that the victim was “unfavorably known for drug trafficking cases.”
According to information from BFMTV, which was able to trace the history of the forty-year-old with the French justice system, Issam O. had already been indicted in two cases linked to drug trafficking.
That evening, Issam O. could do nothing to escape the hail of gunfire from his killer, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, who had just entered his business, located in the Arenc district, a stone’s throw from the large autonomous port of the prefecture city.
Forensic experts found “33 7.62 mm caliber shell casings” at this crime scene of rare violence. The car of the perpetrators of this assassination was found burned out, a few minutes after the events, about twenty kilometers from its starting point in the commune of Rove.
In the back of the charred Volkswagen, police discovered the murder weapon.
This is the thirteenth settling of scores recorded since the beginning of the year in the Phocaean city. But, this time, it is not a small hand of drug trafficking that has fallen.
A man steeped in drug trafficking
Born in the commune of Le Sers in Tunisia, a country of which he had retained the nationality, Issam O. arrived in France as a teenager, after “an unhappy childhood” in the absence of his parents.
“He grew up in a nursery in his native country,” confided one of his relatives, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But once in France, he very quickly learned to earn money.”
On the side of the organized and specialized crime division (DCOS, ex-PJ) of Marseille, in charge of the investigation into his assassination, they speak of a “handsome guy”, a major thug in police jargon, rooted in drug banditry.
However, reading his criminal record does not match that of a drug baron. Issam O. had four convictions, the last of which dates back to 2016. A sentence of “100 days-fine”, in connection with facts of “undeclared work” and “employing a foreigner without a work permit”, had been pronounced against him by the judicial court of Marseille.
For the rest, this father of two children had been sentenced to three months of suspended prison in a case of insults and another eight months of imprisonment, in 2013, for refusing to comply and driving without a license.
My exams in 2019
The police officers from the Marseille Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) branch saw it appear on their radar for the first time during the “Babou” affair: a vast drug trafficking operation that began in the Flamants estate, in the northern districts of Marseille, before spreading to the Paris region and even abroad.
Indicted and placed in pretrial detention in July 2019 after the discovery of 102,935 euros in cash at his home, Issam O. has always denied being linked to any drug trafficking. “He argued that he had simply played the role of intermediary in this case,” a police officer recalled to BFMTV.
“He said he had obtained a few kilos of cannabis resin from a supplier, nicknamed the Fat One, on behalf of one of his colleagues, but without ever giving the latter’s name.”
According to his own statements, the large sum seized at his home, the notes of which revealed the massive presence of traces of cocaine and cannabis, belonged to an “old man” in the car trade in Germany.
Again, Issam O. did not provide any identity to allow Ofast investigators to support his version of events.
After nine months behind bars, Issam O. was released and placed under judicial supervision.
Issam said he “felt death coming”
The anti-drug police officers and their colleagues from the Marseille PJ’s research and intervention brigade (BRI) then crossed paths with him again at the beginning of 2021, while they were observing the intriguing ballet of the occupants of a Renault Kangoo utility vehicle between a mini-market in the Félix-Pyat estate, located in the 3rd arrondissement in Marseille, an underground garage in the Moulins estate in Nice, a hotbed of drug trafficking in the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture, and the Pontcarral district in Toulon (Var), another hub of drug gangsterism in the south of France.
Arrested in the spring of the same year, Issam O. had again assured that all these trips had nothing to do with drug trafficking. If he went, barely at daybreak, to this Toulon city, it was to “sell shisha tobacco and coffee pods”. Nothing else. “I know that I don’t do drugs” he had defended himself in front of the police who were questioning him.
A new case which earned him another indictment for “drug trafficking” and “criminal association” in May 2021, before being placed in pre-trial detention for almost two years.
“Issam was a straight-laced guy in business,” says a witness who dealt with him. “Financially, he was on the right track. He had no debts and did not have a reputation for being a bad payer. He had a talkative nature.”
Another close friend confided that Issam O. said he “felt death coming” a few weeks before his assassination.
“There are many leads to explore to trace his murderers and their sponsors,” a judicial source told BFMTV. “One of these leads leads to the La Castellane estate in Marseille, where former associates have been fighting for several months. But it is not the only one being explored.”
