increasingly young perpetrators who make collateral victims

Last week, two cases illustrated the involvement of adolescents in drug trafficking. Young people who are also making more and more collateral victims.

In drug banditry, hitmen arrive younger and younger. In Marseille, for the first time, uA 14-year-old teenager was indicted and imprisoned on the evening of Sunday October 6. He is sosuspected of having killed a VTC driver with a bullet to the head. He is a collateral victim, while theteenager would normally attack a trafficker.

The young man was until now what we call “a little hand”, working in recent months on behalf of traffickers on several deal points in Vaucluse. Originally from Avignon, this teenager was placed in a home at the age of 9 becauseOur father and mother are in prison, precisely for drug trafficking.

At the end of last week, he was contacted via encrypted messaging to execute a contract. The sponsor is incarcerated in Aix-en-Provence, he claims to be part of the powerful criminal organization DZ Mafia, et asks him to kill a member of an opposing clan. The young man accepts, against 50,000 euros.

He then takes a VTC and sees his target on the side of the road. But when he asks the driver to stop, the latter refuses. LThe teenager takes out his 357 Magnum pistol and shoots the driver in the head, a 36 year old father which has nothing to do with drug trafficking. EIn police custody, the teenager admits the facts but speaks of an accidental shooting.

Sunday, during a press conference, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone pointed out the fact that the perpetrators are younger and younger. He even spoke of a “ultra rejuvenation”. Another example:last year, an 18-year-old boy was indicted in Marseille for six murders linked to drug trafficking.

Monday morning, on franceinfo, Commissioner Yann Sourisseau, head of the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime, returned to this worrying phenomenon. “What we have been witnessing in recent years is the proliferation of teams of young hitmen. They are, on average, less than 25 years old. They are, initially, small-scale, originating from all over the country , but more particularly from Ile-de-France and the Marseille region.

“They are recruited solely to kill, they are not very experienced and often do not even know the real sponsor of these assassinations.”

Yann Sourisseau, head of the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime

on franceinfo

“They are paid 15,000 or 20,000 euros per act, are only motivated by greed and lack the most basic empathy,” he adds.

These teenagers are therefore very dangerous, also because of their amateurism. This is ite which cost the life of this VTC driver, new collateral victim of drug banditry in Marseille.