Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images
Warning: material contains strong language and descriptions of sexual violence
One day, four years ago, a woman bought hashish from a young dealer in one of the residential areas of Marseille. And even though she had just purchased drugs illegally, she decided to call the police. It was about a note that the dealer slipped into her hands along with the drugs.
“We are being held captive, we need help. We are 15 years old,” the note said.
A teenage drug dealer was one of two boys forcibly held by a gang, a trial in France earlier this year has revealed. Initially, both of them turned to drug dealers in search of income, albeit illegally.
One was assigned to handle money, the other sold drugs on the streets around the Fres-Vallon housing estate.
Soon, the leaders of the group accused the teenagers of the lack of revenue.
After this, as was told in court, the boys began to be beaten regularly. They were forced to dance naked in front of the camera and then blackmailed with these videos. One of the teenagers was raped.
A few hours after the woman received the note, the teenagers tried to escape through a second-floor window. In this case, both were injured. One managed to escape, the second was caught, beaten and stabbed, but survived.
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Police subsequently made arrests. Photos of several other young people who found themselves in a similar situation were found on the phone of one of the teenagers' alleged tormentors. As a result, six people received harsh sentences for crimes against two teenagers.
The boys' story shows just how tightly drug gangs control parts of Marseille, France's second-largest city.
Marseille, with its combination of Mediterranean culture, street art and hip-hop scene, is very popular among tourists. However, outside the city center, a completely different, non-tourist picture opens up.
The BBC film crew, after spending several months, managed to penetrate this dangerous world of poor neighborhoods and high-rise residential complexes of the port city, where even the police prefer not to enter unless absolutely necessary.
We have discovered a world in which ruthless criminal gangs lure vulnerable young people with promises of easy money and then effectively deny them the opportunity to escape the cruel world of drug trafficking and human exploitation.
We saw gangs recruit hitmen through social media and spoke to several young people caught up in the crime spree. One of the group's members, who is in prison on charges of involvement in several murders, told how his “coolness” helped him rise through the ranks of the criminal hierarchy.
image copyrightSocial media
Marseille's most powerful criminal group, the DZ Mafia, won a bloody turf war and is now considered one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in France.
DZ is the official Internet domain of Algeria. It was in this country that this year one of the founders of the group, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, Mehdi Laribi, was detained on a French warrant.
The group rose to prominence in 2023 when it became the first French crime group to capitalize on its notoriety by posting video messages and advertising its “brand” on social media, according to Dimitri Zoulas, head of the French police anti-drug unit, OFAST.
The last such statement appeared in July. The police received information that the mayor of one of the cities neighboring Marseille could be in danger from DZ Mafia, and the mayor was taken into custody.
DZ Mafia published a video in which six men dressed in black and masks stood at a table, and one of them read a statement that the group was not involved in what was happening.
The rapid growth of the group was also facilitated by the expansion of the French illegal drug market: along with large volumes of cannabis and synthetic drugs, the import of cocaine into the country sharply increased.
Zoulas said the number of cocaine users in France could soon reach two million. In 2017 there were 600 thousand.
Drug trafficking in France brings in 7 billion euros a year and, according to Zulas, 200 thousand people are involved in it.
Many of those involved in drug distribution are children. Authorities say the number of children involved in drug trafficking is growing. According to official estimates, in 2025 more than 10 thousand minors were involved in this activity in one way or another.
DZ Mafia is a prime example of this. To reach more clients, the group needs to recruit more new members - including more children.
We found out that she is now recruiting young people all over France, and not only to sell drugs, but also to commit kidnappings, torture and murder.
The gang's leaders, who usually run it from prison or abroad, view this generation of young people as easily susceptible to criminal influence and view them as expendable.
And when these children fall into the criminal world of Marseille, then, as police and judges admit, it becomes very difficult to get them out of there.
image copyrightLea Guedj/BBC
Few people are more aware of the human toll that the Marseille gangs take than Karine Brouillard, even though she lives on the other side of France, almost as far away from the Mediterranean coast as possible.
Her son Hugo first ran away from home at the age of 15 after a quarrel with his family. They lived in a village in northern France, near the border with Belgium. Three days later, police found him almost a thousand kilometers from his home, in Marseille. He had money and cannabis on him. He was returned home.
But a few years later, in 2023, Yugo headed south again. He told his parents that he had found a job during the holidays in a restaurant near Marseille.
“He regularly reported how he was doing,” recalls Karin. “He called me, everything was fine.”
Three weeks later, her doctor called her. Karin says she will never forget his words: “Your son came to us last night. He received a bullet wound to the head."
Police believe Hugo was taken to hospital from a gang-controlled area and suspect he was affiliated with one of the gangs.
This area was Cartier-Nord.
Local resident Fadella Widef, a 41-year-old mother of four children, helped us get to Cartier-Nord, where the DZ Mafia group dominates.
37 seconds after entering the territory of one of the residential complexes we find ourselves blocked.
As Fadella's Peugeot passes the gang's checkpoint, car horns sound. The teenagers on duty immediately notice our camera. “Wait, stop filming,” Fadella says as a gray SUV pulls us to the side of the road.
“I’m preparing a report for my housing association,” she tells the driver, who starts asking questions. He finally agrees to let us go on the condition that we stop filming.
The assertiveness of the driver of the car, who is clearly not from the police, makes you feel uneasy. When he finally leaves, we are relieved.
“Gangs have been very aggressive lately,” Fadella explains. “And we’re just trying to convey to our young people that this is all wrong.”
Fadella says many locals fear for their children: they could be lured by huge amounts of money and drawn into a world of crime.
It was money that motivated one young man to spend his teenage years in the ranks of the DZ Mafia.
To ensure that our interlocutors could speak freely, as well as for security reasons, we agreed not to reveal their identities.
Kamil says that he managed to rise in the hierarchy of the group and eventually became “responsible for security” in one of the areas it controls.
Now he is 20 years old. He claims that he left the group. He treats us with great suspicion, but still agrees to tell us how the gang recruits young members.
“They know how to turn your head. They will give you everything you want,” he says. According to him, we can talk about expensive cars and apartments, drugs and prostitutes.
“And for this, for what they give you, you are devoted to them. And you stay until the very end - until you die or end up in prison,” continues Kamil.
And when the group discovers a weak point in a recruit, then, judging by Kamil’s description, there are sobering consequences: “They will take advantage of it. You are their six. That's it, you're finished."
Another DZ Mafia member, Adam (not his real name), says he was part of the DZ Mafia assassin group. We talk to him via video call via Snapchat.
He is currently in prison awaiting trial for several murders in which investigators believe he is involved.
“People noticed my determination, my composure, and I, without meaning to, began to rise through the hierarchy of the group,” says Adam. “It became my habitat, I had to play by these rules.”
During the conversation, he agrees that the murders he is accused of were "pretty shocking."
“Attempts in broad daylight, in traffic jams... It could be anything from going to hit some guy, slapping him in the face, to grabbing him in front of his mother and burning him in the car,” he says. “I think I’m good at keeping my composure, I’m pretty good at it.”
image copyrightMarianne Baisnee/BBC
We ask Adam if he regrets committing such brutal crimes.
He says he "kind of feels guilty" but has no regrets.
“If I hadn’t done all this, others would have done it in my place, and so on. I’m just one brick in the wall,” he says.
Like many teenagers from Marseille, he knew that big money could be made quickly from drug dealing. Now in his early 20s, he admits that the environment he found himself in was a trap.
At a drug sales point located in a social housing complex controlled by DZ Mafia, prices for cocaine, hashish and marijuana are written on the wall.
The residential complex itself serves as a natural stronghold for drug traffickers. Since there is only one main road leading into it, they can monitor the flow of shoppers and notice the approach of the police.
In these areas, bursts of automatic weapons are often heard at night.
After several months of negotiations, the manager of a drug retail outlet belonging to a rival gang agrees to meet us at his workplace.
We enter the residential complex early in the morning. The birds are singing. Children go to school. Nothing reminds us of the crimes that are committed here on an industrial scale.
“Joe” says that at the age of 13 he was earning 3,000 euros a month. Now, he says, his monthly income has increased to 5-10 thousand euros.
He seems to believe that such a life was destined for him - and this life also turned out to be very rich.
We ask Joe if he thinks about the people who died at the hands of his gang members. But this 23-year-old seems to have long ceased to care about the pain and misery that comes with drug dealing.
“Yes, it ruins people’s lives, but each of us makes our own choices,” he says, shrugging.
According to Zoulas, head of the anti-drug unit of the French police, the Joe gang and the DZ Mafia group pose a threat to national security.
He says drug trafficking is linked to traffic accidents, domestic violence, depression, suicide and more than 700 overdose deaths annually.
The police have achieved some success in the fight against drug gangs in Marseille and other cities.
Law enforcement agencies manage to disrupt criminal operations, arrest gang leaders, and seize drugs. Thus, from 2024 to the present moment, about a thousand people associated with DZ Mafia have been detained, of which 600 have been taken into custody.
However, in general, combating drug trafficking is becoming increasingly difficult.
Gangs are expanding their activities, looking for replacements for gang members who have been arrested or killed, and social media has become an effective recruiting tool for them. This became especially noticeable after the Covid pandemic, when a significant part of the street drug trade moved online.
On social networks we found countless advertisements for work as drivers, couriers and hitmen for the Marseille drug mafia. Such ads are often accompanied by AI-generated images that romanticize a life of crime.
Groups are expanding the geography of their search for new participants, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract local youth: locals now know what happens to people in drug gangs.
According to police, these advertisements can reach teenagers in almost all corners of France and become a powerful incentive for them to travel to Marseille, in the Cartier-Nord region.
According to law enforcement officials, Internet advertising has also changed the typical portrait of a person joining a criminal group.
Now these are often people without a criminal record, but with weaknesses that can be exploited - for example, with problems in the family.
“These people are recruited by unscrupulous clients who send them straight into the lion’s den,” explains Thibault Fontaine, head of France’s organized crime unit.
At the same time, according to him, the lack of criminal experience of these people allows the police to detain them faster.
Karin still doesn't know why her son Yugo was shot.
When we ask what she would say to gang leaders recruiting children and young men in Marseille, she replies: “They destroy families. People have younger sisters, younger brothers, and grandparents. But to be honest, I don’t think these people have any heart at all.”
The restaurant Yugo said he was going to work at actually existed. However, his staff told Karin that they did not hire anyone named Hugo.
His death is almost certainly linked to the Cartier-Nord area of Marseille.
Additional materials for the report were prepared by Marianne Besnet, Lea Guedge and Paul Pradier.
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