With 47 dead and 118 injured, narcobanditry has marked 2023 a black year for Marseille, where never has so much blood been shed at the city's hundred or so narcotic outlets – a "historically unprecedented level," according to the public prosecutor Nicolas Bessone, who on Thursday, December 21, released his findings on "this very sharp increase in homicides related to drug-trafficking." Their number has more than doubled since 2020 when assault rifles in the hands of criminal gangs claimed 20 lives.

The "very strong increase in juvenile victims and perpetrators" has already been noted in recent years and is at the root of the phenomenon. Seven minors have been killed and 18 injured. Of the 56 perpetrators charged with gang execution and attempted murder, six were minors and 51% were aged between 18 and 21, such as the two young, hired killers aged 18 and 19, who at the beginning of the year, were caught in the act and arrested, but "with no previous record in relation to the seriousness of the crime," Bessone said.

After drawing up a typology of the victims, the prosecutor identified four categories: drug traffickers affiliated with a criminal group; young lookouts and dealers machine-gunned at a point of sale; directly targeted residents in housing estates where, in "narcoterrorism" logic, the aim is to appropriate an existing network, and finally, so-called collateral victims, who in 2023 died in gunfire incidents, which included three women.

There has been a strong rise in the number of child runners or “errand boys,” being recruited on social media by Marseille’s drug dealers, and the young people who fall for the illusion of easy money are paying a heavy price; like the 16-year-old from Savoie who on November 13, was killed on the drug trafficking circuit known as the “Drive de La Bricarde." He died just four hours after arriving in Marseille and being picked up at the Saint-Charles train station by a network "cab." As he left home that morning, the young man had said to his mother: "See you tonight." The Marseille public prosecutor's office is planning hard-hitting messages on social media to dissuade wanna-be drug dealers from coming to Marseille and to make them take heed of the risks involved.

The number of women involved in Marseille's narcobanditry is new and also on the rise; four women have already been charged with criminal conspiracy to commit crimes. "Previously, women acted as money, drugs and weapons nannies; today, we see that they seem to be taking a more active role in managing sales locations and in organizing and ordering executions." According to the prosecutor, women are now involved in the operational side of things and are able to replace a companion who is on the run or in prison.

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