Warning: Strong language and descriptions of sexual violence
Although she had just bought hashish from a drug dealer, the woman decided to call the police.
This is because, in addition to the illegal drugs, the young seller had given him a note during their brief meeting in a public housing project in Marseille in 2022.
“We are being held captive and need help. We are 15 years old,” it read.
The young dealer, a French court was told earlier this year, was one of two boys detained by a gang they had both initially approached for paid, albeit illegal, work.
One of the boys was responsible for managing the money, the other patrolled the streets around the Frais-Vallon district. But soon their superiors accused them of being responsible for revenue “deficits.”
This was followed by regular beatings, the court was told, and being forced to dance naked in front of a camera for blackmail purposes. One of the boys was also raped.
Hours after the woman received the message, the two teens attempted to escape through a second-story window, injuring themselves in the process. One managed to escape, while the other was caught, beaten and stabbed, but survived.
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Arrests took place. Photos found on the phone of one of the boys' alleged torturers showed several other young men in a similar state of distress. Six men have since been sentenced to heavy sentences for the abuse inflicted on the two teenagers.
The story of these boys highlights the influence of drug cartels on certain neighborhoods of France's second city.
While the mix of Mediterranean culture, urban art and hip-hop scene has made Marseille a popular tourist destination, beyond the city center it's a different story.
After months of effort, a BBC team managed to penetrate this dangerous world, centered on the deprived streets and large apartment blocks of the port city, where the police do not venture lightly.
We discovered an environment where ruthless gangs lure vulnerable young people with promises of easy money, but end up trapping them in a world of drug dealing, brutality and exploitation.
We saw how gangs use social media to recruit hitmen and spoke with several young men caught in the cycle of violence.
From prison, a gang member accused of involvement in several murders has spoken about how his coolness allowed him to rise through the ranks.
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The city's most powerful gang, the DZ Mafia, has emerged victorious from a bloody turf war and is now one of the most feared criminal organizations in France.
DZ is the official Internet country code for Algeria, where one of the gang's founders, a French-Algerian named Mehdi Laribi, was arrested earlier this year on a French arrest warrant.
This criminal group gained considerable notoriety in 2023, when it became the first French gang to capitalize on its notoriety by issuing video communiqués – using social media to promote itself as a brand – explains Dimitri Zoulas, head of the country's anti-drugs unit.
His last statement was in July, when the mayor of a neighboring town had to be placed under police protection after intelligence indicated he was at risk of being targeted by the group.
In an online video, six masked men dressed in black stood behind a table, while one of them read a statement denying DZ Mafia's involvement.
Photo credit, Social networks
The expansion of the French illegal drugs market – which has seen a sharp rise in cocaine imports as well as large volumes of cannabis and synthetic drugs – has also contributed to the rapid growth of this gang.
The number of cocaine users in France is expected to soon reach two million, according to Zoulas, up from 600,000 in 2017. Drug trafficking in France generates €7 billion (£5.9 billion) a year and involves 200,000 people, he adds.
Many of the drug traffickers are children, and authorities are seeing an increase in the number of minors involved. In 2024, nearly 10,000 children were affected in one way or another, according to official figures.
DZ Mafia is a perfect example. To reach more customers, it needs more members – more children.
We have seen that he is now recruiting young people across France, not only to sell drugs, but also to commit kidnappings, torture and murder.
They constitute a generation considered easy to corrupt, but also expendable, by the bosses who generally control them from prison or abroad.
And, as the police and judges warn, once these children have entered the slums of Marseille, it is very difficult to get them out.
Photo credit, Lea Guedj / BBC
Few people know the human cost of Marseille gangs like Karine Brouillard, a mother who lives on the other side of France, almost as far from the Mediterranean coast as possible.
His son, Hugo, ran away for the first time at the age of 15, from his home in a village in the North, after a family argument. He was arrested by the police three days later, in Marseille, almost 1,000 km away, in possession of money and cannabis. He was taken home.
But several years later, in 2023, Hugo planned to return to the south, telling his parents that he had landed a seasonal job in a restaurant near Marseille.
“He kept me informed regularly,” remembers Karine. “He called me, everything was fine. »
Three weeks later, a doctor called. Karine says she will never forget his words: “Your son arrived last night. He was shot in the head. »
Police believe Hugo was brought to receive medical treatment from a gang-controlled area and suspect he was involved with one.
This neighborhood was called the Northern Quarter.
The best way to access the Northern Quarter, where the DZ Mafia exercises its power, is to call on Fadella Ouidef, a 41-year-old resident and mother of four children, who shows us around.
Thirty-seven seconds after entering a subdivision, we find ourselves stuck.
Horns sound as soon as Fadella's Peugeot crosses a roadblock manned by a gang; the teenagers manning the post immediately spot our camera. “Wait, stop filming,” warns Fadella, while a gray 4x4 forces us to park on the shoulder.
“I’m writing a report for my social landlord,” she explains to the curious driver. He ends up agreeing to let us go if we stop filming.
It's disconcerting to see a non-police vehicle moving so confidently, and it's a relief to see it go.
“Recently, the gangs have become very aggressive,” explains Fadella. “What we're just trying to do is make our young people understand that what's happening is wrong. »
Fadella echoes a more general fear among local families: that their children will be lured by huge sums of money to take a criminal path that strips them of their innocence.
It was money that pushed a young man to spend his adolescence with the DZ Mafia.
In order to allow our interlocutors to express themselves freely, or for security reasons, we have agreed to protect their identity.
Camil tells us that he rose through the ranks of the gang to become responsible for security in an area he controls.
The young man, now aged 20 and who claims to have left the group, is very wary of our presence, but agrees to explain to us how the gang recruits young members.
“They know how to manipulate you. They give you everything you want,” he says. This can range from nice cars and spacious apartments to drugs and prostitutes, he explains.
“We feel loyalty to them because of what they bring to us. We stay until the end, until death or prison. »
Camil also makes an alarming observation of what happens if the gang spots a weakness in a recruit: “They will exploit him. You will be their lackey, it's over. »
DZ Mafia member Adam (not his real name) tells us about being part of a DZ Mafia hit squad during a Snapchat video call.
He is currently in prison awaiting trial after being implicated in several murders.
“People noticed my determination, my composure and, unwittingly, I moved up the ranks of the gang,” says Adam. “It became my place, I had to get used to it. »
During the conversation, he acknowledges that the murders of which he is accused are "utterly shocking."
“Attempts in broad daylight, in traffic jams... it can range from a simple slap to the act of taking him in front of his mother and burning him alive in a car. I think I'm keeping my cool, I'm handling the situation pretty well. »
Photo credit, Marianne Baisnee / BBC
We ask Adam if he feels any regret when he commits such brutal acts.
He says he feels “partly guilty” but says he has no regrets.
“If I hadn't done all that, others would have done it for me, and so on. I’m just another brick in the wall,” he says.
Like so many Marseille teenagers, he knew that large sums of money could be made quickly in drug trafficking. Today, in his late twenties, he admits that the environment in which he evolved was a trap.
In an isolated social neighborhood controlled by the DZ mafia, a transaction point is supposed to be a safe place, but price lists for cocaine, hashish and marijuana are graffitied on a wall.
The neighborhood serves as a natural fortress for drug traffickers. With a single main road leading there, they can control the influx of customers and monitor the arrival of the police.
It is not uncommon for the sound of automatic weapons fire to fill the night air in these regions.
After months of negotiations, a transaction manager from a rival gang agrees to meet us at his workplace.
We enter the domain early in the morning; the birdsong and the children walking to school provide a stark contrast to the industrial-scale criminal operation taking place there.
'Joe' claims he was earning €3,000 (£2,500) a month when he was 13. He says today that this amount has increased to between €5,000 and €10,000 per month.
He seems to view his life path as predestined, even if it is a lucrative one.
We ask Joe if he thinks about the lives lost to the violence perpetrated by his gang, but the 23-year-old has long made peace with the pain and destruction that drug dealing can bring.
“It destroys people, but everyone makes their own choices,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
“The work done by Joe's gang and the DZ Mafia poses a threat to national security,” says Zoulas of the drug unit.
There are road accidents, as well as domestic violence, depression, suicides and more than 700 overdoses every year, he says, "and it disrupts the economy."
“We are heading towards a potential systemic collapse of the criminal justice system. »
Photo credit, Social media
Police have had successes in Marseille and other cities against drug gangs.
Criminal operations are foiled, more and more drug lords are arrested and narcotics are seized.
Since 2024, around 1,000 people linked to the DZ Mafia have been arrested and 600 incarcerated, according to police.
But overall, it’s a battle that’s becoming more difficult than easy.
As gangs seek to expand their activities or replace arrested or killed members, social media has become a powerful recruiting tool, especially since the Covid pandemic, when many street drug sales moved online.
On social media, we found countless job advertisements in Marseille for drivers, couriers and aspiring hitmen, often accompanied by glamorized AI-generated images.
The nets are also being deployed more widely, as it becomes more difficult to attract young people locally, who are better informed of the risks involved.
These advertisements can reach adolescents in most regions of France, including Paris, Nantes and Lille, and have a strong attraction in Marseille and the Northern Quarter, according to the police.
Online advertising has also changed the typical profile of a person likely to join the ranks of a gang, according to law enforcement.
These are often people without a criminal past, but with exploitable vulnerabilities, such as a difficult home life.
“These people are recruited by unscrupulous sponsors who send them into the den of the wolf,” explains Thibaut Fontaine, head of the French unit fighting organized crime.
He said their lack of criminal experience makes them easier to arrest quickly.
Karine still doesn't know why her son, Hugo, was shot.
Asked what she would say to the gang leaders who recruit children and young men in Marseille, she replied: “They destroy families. Little sisters, little brothers, grandparents. But hey, I don't think these people have a heart, deep down. »
The restaurant where her son said he went to work did indeed exist, but the staff told Karine that they had never recruited anyone named Hugo.
The cause of his death is most likely in the Northern District of Marseille.
Additional reporting by Marianne Baisnee, Lea Guedj and Paul Pradier
We used AI to help translate this article, originally written in English. A BBC journalist checked the translation before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
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