Under the new leadership, the DZ Mafia formed alliances with the Mocro Mafia in the Netherlands and the 'Ndrangheta.
The DZ Mafia of Marseille: A French Gomorra?
Agata C. Hidalgo
19 min read
·
6 hours ago
The body of a young man burned. A woman killed in her apartment by a hail of bullets fired from the street. An execution carried out in broad daylight among public housing blocks.
No, we are not in Scampia of the early 2000s, the setting of the series Gomorra, but in today’s Marseille.
Between 2023 and 2024, the Phocaean city was indeed torn apart by a war that saw the DZ Mafia clash with other criminal groups — first the Yoda clan and then the Blacks — for control of the main drug trafficking areas in the city. This war reached unprecedented levels of violence and media coverage, forcing France to confront an existential question: Is the terror gripping its cities a form of mafia?
In this article you’ll learn about the events that led to this spiral of violence, understand whether the groups involved are of a mafia nature, and assess if France’s response is adequate to the threat they pose.
Listen to the podcast (in Italian) here
At the roots of the DZ mafia
Criminal group wars are nothing new in Marseille. It was in Marseille that the French “mafia,” known as the milieu, emerged in the early 20th century, and it was also in Marseille that drug trafficking reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s with the French Connection. The struggles between rival clans of the milieu for control of drug trafficking, extortion, gambling, and prostitution continued until 2000. I recounted these events in the Bar Lume podcast “From the Milieu to Organized Gangs: A Brief History of Organized Crime in France,” which is, in a way, the prequel to this episode.
After the murder of the last godfather of the Marseille milieu, Francis Vanverberghe, known as “The Belgian,” it was the organized gangs that took over the Marseille criminal scene. These organized gangs, known as bandes organisées, are criminal groups based in the public housing blocks (les cités) of French cities, mostly composed of first or second-generation immigrants, competing mainly for the drug market. Among these groups is the DZ Mafia.
DZ is an abbreviation of el-Djazaïr or simply Dzayir, the Arabic name for Algeria. The founder of the organization is indeed Algerian: Mehdi Abdelatif Laribi, known as “Rachitique” or simply “Tic.” Tic began his criminal career in the early 2000s with his older brother Lamine, known as Tac. “Tic and Tac,” or “Chip and Dale” in French, were versatile criminals, active in drug trafficking in the Cité la Paternelle but also involved in contract killings. In 2011, they accepted a job from Sami Ati, a drug trafficker and leader of the Cité Micocouliers: to kill three rivals in exchange for 150,000 euros. On Christmas Day that year, the Laribi brothers lured Sonny Albarello, 20, Nouri Oualan, and Mohamed Bouhembel, both 19, to a secluded location outside the city. Lamine, the elder, shot and killed the three, while Mehdi burned the vehicle. This “Marseille barbecue” (as such operations are called) did not go unnoticed: the Laribi brothers were arrested, and in 2015, Tac was sentenced to 25 years in prison, while Tic received 10 years.
The sentence should have marked the end of Tic’s criminal career, but the COVID-19 pandemic shuffled the deck. Between 2020 and 2021, overcrowded French prisons were forced to release a large number of inmates, who returned home. Among them was Tic, who returned to the Cité la Paternelle and found himself surrounded by criminals ready to resume their activities. This is how the DZ Mafia was born: a criminal alliance that later evolved into a full-fledged franchise, dedicated to wholesale drug sales and the allocation of drug trafficking areas to members and allies operating autonomously. Among these, still in the Cité la Paternelle, was the Yoda clan, named after the Star Wars character graffiti on the wall of their drug trafficking point.
The model worked: in 2021, there were 160 drug trafficking points in Marseille, capable of generating up to 100,000 euros per day. The Cité Paternelle, ideally located near the highway, became one of the main drug trafficking areas, a modern-day Scampia-Secondigliano. The authorities raised the alarm about the drug crisis, but struggled to contain the phenomenon.
But La Paternelle was too small to contain two ambitious organizations: the DZ Mafia and the Yoda clan were on a collision course.
In February 2023, Tic was spending an evening at a nightclub in Phuket, Thailand. Félix Bingui, known as Le Chat (“The Cat”), the leader of the Yoda clan, was also at the same venue. The two began to argue and then came to blows. Le Chat, a Franco-Central African, was more robust than Le Tic and gained the upper hand. This incident became the casus belli: the dispute between the two bosses served as a pretext to unleash a war back home.
From the safety of their overseas hideouts, Le Tic and Le Chat began recruiting young hitmen, often minors, on social media to eliminate key figures of the rival clan. The effects were devastating: in 2023 alone, Marseille saw 49 deaths. The government quickly realized the gravity of the situation and, in July, presented a bill to combat drug trafficking. But this did not deter the protagonists of the conflict: on September 10, a street shooting killed a woman who was taking refuge in her apartment, shocking public opinion.
In March 2024, Le Chat was arrested in Morocco, putting the Yoda clan on its knees. But the war was far from over for the DZ Mafia. The Blacks, a clan of Comorians based in the Cité Félix-Pyat (not to be confused with the Blacks of the Cité Lauriers, a long-standing and more structured criminal enterprise), were determined to take over the drug trafficking points of the Yoda clan.
Following this turn in the conflict, the DZ Mafia underwent a reorganization. Le Tic was ousted from command and “retired” to Algeria. The reins of the organization were taken over by a triumvirate: Amine O., known as “Mamine Escobar” or simply “Jalisco,” Gabriel O., known as “Gaby,” and Madi Z., known as “La Brute,” all of whom had been in detention for some time.
Mamine Escobar, 31, emerged as the leader. Involved in the murder, dismemberment, and burning of three men in 2020, he has been in prison since 2021. La Brute, a 35-year-old drug trafficker, has also been detained since 2021. Gaby, 30, a former hitman, is responsible for recruiting new young members to carry out contract killings.
But how do the three manage the organization from prison? Simple: they have cell phones delivered to them at night by drones into the prison, an operation known as “Uber shit.” Only 22 French prison complexes are currently equipped to detect and stop these drones, mainly due to lack of funds.
Once in control of the organization, the three not only continued the war but also implemented a more violent expansion strategy than their predecessor.
Under the new leadership, the DZ Mafia formed alliances with the Mocro Mafia in the Netherlands (which I discussed in another episode) and the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria to secure the best drug shipments arriving in Europe and strengthen its position as a wholesaler. This allowed them to open drug trafficking points even in cities outside Marseille, first in neighboring areas (Avignon, Sète, Valence…) and then in the rest of the country (Lyon, Poitiers, Dijon, even Rennes in Brittany), extending their franchise well beyond the Phocaean city, both in drug trafficking and money laundering.
To meet the immediate need for cash to finance the war, between spring and summer 2024, the DZ Mafia also entered the world of extortion, targeting shops, nightclubs, and even rappers and influencers. But their demands were so high that the victims refused to pay, leading to tragic consequences: shops were targeted with vandalism and arson, and prominent individuals were subjected to personal attacks. In August, the rapper SCH was the target of a shooting that killed one of his associates.
But it was the increasingly brutal murders linked to the war against the Blacks that shocked public opinion.
In early October, a 15-year-old was recruited online by a detainee claiming to be from the DZ Mafia to shoot at the door of a Blacks member and set fire to his home, all while filming himself. The agreed compensation: 2,000 euros. Upon arriving at the Cité Bellevue where he was supposed to commit the crime, the boy was searched. A firearm was found on him, and he was stabbed about fifty times before being burned alive.
Two days later, the same individual recruited another youth, this time a 14-year-old, to finish the job. The task was simple: go to a hotel room to retrieve a weapon, then kill a member of the Blacks. The compensation this time was 50,000 euros. But this mission also went wrong: the young man booked a ride-share to reach the crime scene, but the driver refused to stop at the indicated location. In response, the boy shot the driver in the back of the head, killing him.
These two crimes were so heinous that the DZ Mafia decided to issue a statement to distance itself from them. On October 9, about fifteen men dressed entirely in black and hooded published a video online in which they displayed a flag with the inscription “DZ Mafia” and denied involvement in these crimes, blaming the misuse of their brand by other criminal groups.
But a statement was not enough to clean up the DZ Mafia’s reputation, especially in light of two other high-profile crimes committed shortly afterward.
In November 2024, in the parking lot of a McDonald’s in Marseille, a car was riddled with Kalashnikov bullets. Inside were five young people, three boys and two girls. The couple sitting in the front was killed. The girl’s only fault: knowing the intended victims. Mamine Escobar was extracted from his cell to be interrogated: investigators believed he was the mastermind behind the execution, carried out by a commando that included a minor.
The following month, it was Gaby’s turn, another leader of the DZ Mafia, who, determined not to remain idle, put a 120,000 euro bounty on the head of the director of the prison where his deputy was held. A few days later, two armed men from the Île-de-France region, the area around Paris, were stopped near the prison complex. The director and his deputy were placed under protection.
The authorities then opted for a less sophisticated method: placing Mamine Escobar in solitary confinement. Only then did the number of murders in Marseille dramatically decrease.
Where do we stand today?
The Yoda clan is defeated. The executions ordered by the DZ Mafia are no longer front-page news in national newspapers. But the situation is far from resolved.
Criminal groups operating in other French cities are claiming affiliation with the DZ Mafia to carry out activities not necessarily related to drug trafficking. This is the case with a racketeering ring in Nice and a prostitution ring in Toulouse. The DZ Mafia has gone from being a franchise to a full-fledged brand that various groups use to intimidate their victims.
Meanwhile, in Marseille, the Blacks are still active, along with dozens of other criminal groups. As we saw at the beginning of the episode, the void left by a boss and his organization is immediately filled by competitors, and if the old leaders return to freedom or gain access to means of communication with the outside world, conflict is almost inevitable. Without a real plan for recovery and social integration, the ordeal is far from over for the residents of the Cité Paternelle and other public housing blocks in Marseille.
Gang, cartel or mafia?
In a November 2024 speech, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau spoke of the “Mexicanization” of society.
A few days later, in a televised debate, French journalist and author Jérôme Pierrat downplayed the issue, saying, “The DZ Mafia is not a real organization” and that “we are far from El Chapo’s cartel.”
Interviewed on the subject by the French media Brut, Roberto Saviano stated unequivocally: “These organizations can be defined as mafias.”
While it is very positive that there is a public debate on the nature of the DZ Mafia, the lack of consensus on the issue remains concerning. We might be tempted to dismiss this debate as merely semantic if it were not for the fact that identifying the problem is the first, fundamental step in addressing it.
Unfortunately, there are good reasons why it is difficult to establish with certainty into which category the DZ Mafia falls. Is it a gang, a drug cartel, or a full-fledged mafia?
To answer this question, we must start with what we know. The DZ Mafia is certainly an organized criminal group. We know this because French journalists and investigators have been able to reconstruct its hierarchy through the testimonies of arrested members.
At the top of the DZ Mafia, as we have seen, was initially the founder, Le Tic, who was succeeded by the triumvirate formed by Jalisco, La Brute, and Gaby. Like other competing criminal groups, including the Yoda clan, these leaders are often abroad or in prison. According to Pierrat, this detachment — both hierarchical and geographical — gives the organization a sectarian character. Below the leaders are about thirty lieutenants who, in turn, recruit low-level soldiers, known as “petites mains” (“little hands”).
These “soldiers” are young people between the ages of 14 and 24, recruited for specific missions on a compensated basis. They are the ones who carry out the dirty work, such as eliminating members of a rival clan. This strategy is successful in many ways: it allows the DZ Mafia not to sacrifice important human resources in dangerous missions, exposes to arrest those who, if minors, face lesser penalties, and, above all, limits the organization’s exposure to investigators. Les petites mains are the lowest rung of the hierarchical ladder and resemble more external collaborators than actual members. Consequently, even if arrested, they can only provide partial information and do not justify the mobilization of resources (such as lawyers) to get them out. From a capitalist perspective, relying on les petites mains is the most cost-effective way to carry out acts of war.
None of this makes the problem of recruiting petites mains any less serious; in fact, it is on social media that minors are lured, especially on TikTok, where ads for missions ranging from 50 to 150,000 euros are posted. Posting ads on social media allows reaching a maximum number of potential candidates, even from other neighborhoods and cities — just consider the three individuals who came from Paris to Marseille to eliminate the director of the Beaumettes prison and claim the 120,000 euro bounty placed on her head by Gaby.
Once interest is shown, the conversation moves to Telegram groups and chats, where missions are detailed and assigned. Pierrat explains that sometimes the promise is not just money but also the management of a drug trafficking point, even in locations far from Marseille, where the DZ Mafia has extended its franchise. The promise of easy money is a magnet for the very young, who are willing to risk their freedom and even their lives to obtain it.
The DZ Mafia can also boast control over a territory: the Cité Paternelle. As happened with the Vele di Scampia, the public housing blocks of the neighborhood become hideouts and drug selling points — unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Most of Marseille’s cités are in the hands of some criminal group that controls not only illegal activities, particularly drug trafficking but also access to the area. This is evident from the brutal murder of the 15-year-old in October and the historical difficulties of the police in intervening in these zones. Expanding the network of drug trafficking points in the city requires either forming an alliance or engaging in conflict with other groups. This is how the DZ Mafia found itself at war with the Yoda clan and the Blacks, but it is also what drove it to expand into other French cities where the drug trade was less organized.
Control of the territory is an important aspect to consider in understanding the nature of the DZ Mafia. For Saviano, a gang is motivated solely by profit, while a mafia pursues power, which includes control of a territory. Dismissing the DZ Mafia as a mere gang, therefore, seems reductive.
Is it a cartel, then? Drug trafficking is undoubtedly the primary activity of the DZ Mafia, and its most bloodthirsty leader, Amine O., nicknames himself Escobar after the infamous Colombian boss, or Jalisco, after the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel. But unlike cartels, the DZ Mafia does not control the production of drugs (which remains in the hands of Latin American cartels) nor their importation into Europe (handled by the Mocro Mafia and the ‘Ndrangheta). Despite its position as a wholesaler in France, the DZ Mafia is not hegemonic in Marseille: many other groups remain active in drug trafficking independently of it. Additionally, the DZ Mafia has begun to diversify its activities, adding extortion to its portfolio.
Are we then dealing with a mafia that collects protection money? Not exactly. While the name the organization has given itself is misleading — like the allusions to Mexican cartels, the name DZ Mafia is undoubtedly intended to give importance and intimidating force to the group — unlike Italy, the French penal code does not recognize “mafia-type association,” making it legally impossible to define the DZ Mafia as such.
We can, however, attempt to interpret the organization and operations of the DZ Mafia based on our definitions. According to Article 416 bis of the Italian Penal Code, a “mafia-type association” is a criminal organization that exploits intimidation, associative bonds, and the resulting subjugation and omertà to control economic activities, concessions, authorizations, contracts, public services, or to achieve unjust profits or advantages, or to hinder or influence the free exercise of voting to its advantage. This definition can apply to both domestic and foreign organizations that share these characteristics.
In the previously cited interview, Saviano identifies other distinguishing features of mafias: the pursuit of power, hierarchies, their control of territory, vision and long-term strategic planning, investment in the recruitment of new members, and rituals.
The DZ Mafia meets only some of these criteria. It is certainly a criminal association that exploits intimidation but does not enjoy omertà, either among its members or towards its victims — consider the revelations provided by arrested members, often low-level, but also the public denunciations on social media and TV by shopkeepers and entertainment figures targeted by extortion. Not to mention the organization’s own statements and publications on social media, which it boasts about. It could be said that the DZ Mafia opposes communication to omertà, although the protagonists hide their faces and true identities.
Furthermore, the way extortion is carried out demonstrates a short-term vision: extortion serves to finance immediate war needs, not to build a secure source of income over the long term. The DZ Mafia demands large sums (several thousand euros) at once, making it impossible for the victim to honor the request. Responding by targeting their business or life destroys any chance of recovering the money. This approach is very different from that of the Sicilian mafia, which, by demanding small sums regularly with less visible threats, ensured a source of income for months if not years.
Control of the territory is present, albeit on a small scale, and does not extend to control of public works. The aspect of corruption also remains limited: so far, the French judicial police have only registered attempts at corruption in the private sector, such as security, and no direct links with politics.
Investment in recruits is perhaps the most visible aspect, although, as we have seen, there is a significant distance between les petites mains and the actual members of the association. We are, therefore, dealing with dynamics of quantity rather than quality in recruitment, and very few manage to remain free or alive long enough to hope to fully enter the organization.
But if the DZ Mafia is a hybrid organization, borrowing traits from many other forms of criminality and adding an unprecedented media component… what can France do to combat it?
France’s response
Remember the bill presented in 2023 to combat drug trafficking? This Tuesday, it was finally put to a solemn vote in the National Assembly, the “Chamber” of the French Parliament. It is a controversial and widely debated law. The anti-drug trafficking bill introduces important innovations in the fight against organized crime, bringing France closer to the Italian system… without, however, creating a crime of mafia-type association or extending its scope beyond drug trafficking. For the government, and particularly the Interior Minister Retailleau, the scourge to be fought is drug trafficking, not the proliferation of criminal organizations in disadvantaged areas of French cities, for which drug trafficking is merely the most accessible and profitable means of enrichment.
But let’s look at the innovations of this law.
First, a new national anti-organized crime investigative pool is created (everything to avoid saying the word “mafia”!). According to Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, this pool will complement the existing anti-organized crime department within law enforcement.
A harsh prison regime is then created for the 700–800 most dangerous detainees, a sort of French 41bis, aimed at breaking the detainee’s links with their criminal network. This regime is valid for two renewable years, during which phone use is limited, visits take place exclusively in rooms with a sound diffusion system, and legal proceedings are conducted via video conference. These measures aim to minimize external contacts, both telephonic and physical, and minimize the risk of escape during transfers. In exceptional cases of physical contact with external persons, systematic and thorough searches are provided.
Another significant advance inspired by the Italian system of confiscating mafia assets is the administrative seizure of the real estate and commercial properties of criminals, thus striking at the heart of their interests: money.
The status of repentant criminals, already existing, is renewed to increase its use and effectiveness.
The new law also facilitates the eviction of criminals and stipulates that individuals of foreign nationality sentenced to more than 5 years in prison for drug trafficking will automatically be subject to a ban on re-entering French territory, unless a judge makes a motivated decision otherwise.
Aggravating circumstances are then introduced for traffickers who exploit minors.
A major point of contention in the text was the measure that would have allowed authorities to access encrypted messages from all messaging apps. This measure would have impacted cybersecurity and the confidentiality of all communications, not just those of criminals. This measure was rejected by deputies, who instead gave the green light to satellite interceptions and the extension of the experimentation of algorithmic surveillance (with artificial intelligence, therefore) already used during the Olympic Games.
What does it take to fight a mafia?
The DZ Mafia, with its unprecedented media visibility, has shed light on a phenomenon that has plagued Marseille for over 150 years: not simply drug trafficking, but the mosaic of criminal organizations vying for territory. For these organizations, drug trafficking is merely the most accessible and profitable means of making money, just as prostitution and gambling were a century ago.
In light of this, France’s response seems insufficient. The recently approved law on combating drug trafficking targets the means (drug trafficking) and not the cause (the organization of parts of the marginalized population into criminal structures). While the tools of repression are stronger, nothing is done for prevention, to prevent young people from finding it more interesting to become hitmen than to go to school, find a job, or play sports. Without a dual approach of repression and prevention, it is difficult to imagine how the authorities’ work will not be limited to cutting off the head of the hydra. In a month, we may no longer be talking about the DZ Mafia, but how many other criminal groups are ready to replace it and conquer its territory?
Even if France is taking important steps in the fight against organized crime, without a real awareness that the phenomenon goes far beyond drug trafficking, its lasting eradication seems difficult if not impossible. And this awareness must first pass through the terms used in public debate and political and institutional narratives. We are not dealing with simple gangs, nor with organizations dedicated exclusively to drug trafficking. Nor are we dealing with mafias in the traditional sense of the term, but with organizations that nonetheless share a concerning number of their traits.
And this is what I would like to emphasize to provoke our reflection even beyond French borders. The modus operandi of the DZ Mafia — the recruitment of very young people who act on the orders of bosses who are often in prison or abroad — is not unique in Europe; in fact, we find the same dynamic in Stockholm, Antwerp, Brussels… I refer you to our English podcast episodes “Sweden has a gang problem,” and “Raising antimafia awareness in Antwerp” to learn more about what is happening in other cities on our continent.
Faced with this observation, the question arises: Are we witnessing the emergence of a Mafia 2.0? Standardized at the European level, unconcerned with being seen and recognized by the media, organized with a small leadership and a vast army of expendable minor soldiers? And if so, are the tools at our disposal sufficient to combat it?
https://agata-hidalgo.medium.com/the-dz-mafia-of-marseille-a-french-gomorra-5dbbd7bdc34e
