nine people indicted out of the 13 arrested

The Marseille prosecutor’s office announced on Friday the arrest of 13 individuals, all suspected of being involved in a double homicide linked to drug trafficking which took place in May 2023 in the city of Salou in Spain.

Among the 13 people arrested, suspected of being involved in a double homicide linked to drug trafficking in 2023 in the city of Salou in Spain, nine have been indicted, announced Monday January 22 the Marseille prosecutor’s office. The other four were released because their participation in this affair could not yet be established.

Among these nine people, there are four men and five women. Of these four men, three are suspected of being members of the commando (the fourth had already been arrested just after the events) and one is suspected of having been the logistician of the commando from a retreat apartment in Port-de-Bouc (Bouches-du-Rhône). All four were remanded in custody but they were all already in custody for other matters.

Concerning the five women indicted, two are placed in pre-trial detention and three under judicial supervision. Among the two women placed in pre-trial detention is the young woman suspected of having given the green light for the assassination. The other four are suspected of having infiltrated the commando.

A war between two rival camps

Friday January 19, the Marseille prosecutor’s office announced a vast search with the arrest of 13 individuals, all suspected of being involved in a double “narchomicide” – a contraction of narco-banditry and homicide – on January 3 May 2023 in the city of Salou, Spain. The majority of these five men and eight women had been arrested the previous week. At the same time, a fourteenth person was arrested in Spain just after the events.

In May 2023, two French nationals, well known to the police and justice services for drug trafficking in the Marseille area, were murdered in the tourist town of Salou, victims of assault rifle fire. Kalashnikov, specifies the prosecutor’s press release. According to this same source, this double homicide is a new settling of scores between Yoda and DZ Mafia, two groups responsible for around forty homicides committed in France in 2023.

The war between the two rival camps began in February 2023 and “reached a climax in May 2023 with the ability of DZ Mafia to set up a commando and project abroad to assassinate prominent members of the opposing clan”, says prosecutor Nicolas Bessone. A process different from that known until now since, adds the prosecutor, until then it was rather “little hands” traffickers who were killed.