How one of France’s top drug gangs is recruiting teenagers

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Kiya.

Shane Colman (0:08)

Now, a BBC investigation has found one of Europe's most powerful drug gangs in France is recruiting teenage children from across the country to commit kidnapping and murder. For more on this, we're joined by the reporter who oversaw the investigation, James Waterhouse, BBC's Paris correspondent.

James, thanks indeed for talking to us. You managed to enter this very dangerous world, that kind of network of deprived streets and high-rise housing estates in Marseille, which police do not enter lightly. Tell us what you found.

James Waterhouse (0:47)

Well, thanks for having me. I mean, it took months of efforts where we were trying to access these zones, these basically high-rise housing estates, sealed off by some of Marseille's most powerful drug gangs. We wanted to go there because we saw a court case earlier in the year in Paris, where a court heard that two boys had been dealing drugs in Marseille and had given a customer a rescue note saying that they were being held captive, they were being forced to dance naked in front of a camera, and they had to jump from a first floor to break free. So we went down there, we established a network, we gained the trust of the gang members, and what we found was a world where with cocaine flooding into France, because of it being at an all-time cheap price, there's a dominant gang called DZ Mafia. They are recruiting teenage minors from not just Marseille, but across the country with these really sophisticated online adverts with AI-generated images and advertising for couriers and even for hitmen.

So we are seeing, according to the authorities, 10,000 minors implicated in these crimes. And to be honest with you, in a developed country like France, it was stark to see its second city under such firm control by the gang.

Shane Colman (2:18)

And the tentacles of the gangs spread far and wide. Tell us the story of Corinne Broulard, whose son got caught up in this world.

James Waterhouse (2:29)

Yeah, we met Corinne in France's northern department, northern region, which is about as far from Marseille as you can get, close to the English Channel. Her son Hugo, when he was a teenager, he went missing after a family argument and he was picked up by police in Marseille with cannabis on him and a load of cash. He was brought home, fast forward to his early 20s, and he told his family that he got a holiday job at a hotel near Marseille. Three weeks later, Corinne and his mother got a call from a doctor to say, Hugo's been dropped off at a hospital, well, he was dumped at a hospital and he's been shot in the head. He might want to come south to say goodbye.

She does not know why her son was shot, but police believe he was taken from an area that was controlled by drug gangs, and they believe he answered one of these adverts that you can see on Instagram or TikTok or other forms of social media. I think that is an illustration, and this is what police have reinforced, that as the gangs are trying to address the increased demand, they are recruiting teenagers, kingpins either from overseas or from prison, are recruiting teenagers that they see as expendable. Even if they come in and commit murder, they sometimes report them to the police and find someone else.

And what the authorities are saying is this is a threat to national security. So it's a really arduous battle for the police.

Shane Colman (4:00)

You entered the Courthier Nord, and it was quite a chilling experience for you. It was.

James Waterhouse (4:07)

I mean, give me an idea. The Courthier Nord is the northern part of Marseille. Political decisions of the past mean the metro lines don't go there, bus routes don't go there. So it's been deliberately ghettoized. And fans of the HBO series The Wire from the early noughties, it's kind of akin to that. We tried to get in initially over the summer, and a lookout saw us, a four by four force, to the side of the road. I'd never seen a non-state vehicle move so assertively. I did fear the worst.

But they let us go. We had to establish permission. Then even the police suggested that we would have to get permission with the gang members. And when you arrive, you realize that these are, you have checkpoints that are operated by gang members, not the police, not the army.

And, you know, even though the police are seeing successes, they are reducing the number of these deal zones. Because the gangs are removing their businesses online and because cocaine is being trafficked, more cocaine is being trafficked from Latin America, where the market across the Atlantic is saturated. Because the trafficking gangs and the distribution gangs in France all speak French, they say the drugs like cocaine are just flooding into the country and it is only making the situation worse.