This French drug cartel, born in the northern districts of Marseille, returned to the heart of the news this weekend.
“An unprecedented savagery.” These are the words used on Sunday October 6 by the Marseille public prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, who took stock of the two narchomicides that occurred last week, October 2 and 4, in Marseille. Among them, the murder on Friday of a VTC driver by a 14-year-old teenager. “The facts take place in a context which is that of the current conflict opposing, in the 3rd arrondissement of Marseille, the ‘DZ Mafia’ and the so-called ‘Blacks’ clan of the Félix Pyat city, in particular for the takeover of the no deal in the city of Moulin-de-Mai”, highlighted Nicolas Bessone.
Founded by Mehdi Abdelatif L., known as “Tic”, in 2010, the DZ Mafia gang originates from the Cité de la Paternelle, located in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille. Among its activities, we note: drug trafficking of course, but also arms trafficking, arson, extortion, kidnappings, murders. According to lawyer Me Alain Lhote, defender of several members of the organization interviewed by TF1 Infopimping, counterfeiting and even bank card fraud would also be part of the activities developed in recent years. Very recently, the DZ Mafia has even started providing hitmen.
The criminal organization is today described as sprawling. On the narcotics side alone, the DZ Mafia’s drugs are sold at the foot of numerous towers in Marseille and bring in tens of thousands of euros every day. “The DZ Mafia are semi-wholesalers who defraud many land sellers,” confirms Philippe Pujol, journalist and author of the Burned: the monster’s children.
Several hundred thousand euros in turnover
If the DZ Mafia has already been talked about a lot in 2023, it is for the deadly war which pitted it against another clan with which it has long cohabited: Yoda. At the end of January 2024, the prosecutor, whose Le Figaro echoed, reported that 73% of intentional homicides by organized gangs and other attempted homicides recorded in Marseille had a link with the DZ Mafia and Yoda. A war which seems to have ended in a victory for the DZ Mafia over Yoda. Today, it controls more than half of the deal points in the Marseille city.
But the influence of the DZ Mafia is not limited to Marseille. Over the past year, crimes and new drug trafficking linked to the criminal organization have been reported almost everywhere in the south of the country, from Sète to Nice, via Montpellier, Nîmes and Avignon. Better yet, its activities would extend further and further north, to Dijon or Rennes, or even further, to Brussels. While it is difficult to estimate the organization’s overall turnover, specialists speak of several hundred thousand euros.