• The government has announced that it wants to crack down on cigarette trafficking and punish it "like those of narcotics".

  • Report in Marseille, where you can get smuggled cigarettes between two commissions at the baker and the greengrocer.

  • If the " raids " of police are more regular, the traffic does not seem to be disturbed for the moment.

"Marlboro, Marlboro, garo, garo (cigarettes)", repeats Chérif* in a low voice in a pedestrian alley in Noailles, a popular district in downtown Marseille.

Here, between a herb stall and a butcher, it is possible to buy cigarettes on the sly.

Like a pair of trainers, jeans or a track top for that matter, but that's not what we're talking about today.

It's hard not to see these tobacco dealers posted at regular intervals.

Noailles does not have, far from it, the monopoly of this traffic.

It happens rather quietly even, unlike Porte d'Aix, another district of the center, or the Flea Market, located north of the city.

On this boulevard is also strongly invested by a whole bunch of merchants of all kinds, cigarettes are bought there "in drive", at traffic lights,



A type of traffic that is not limited to Marseille and against which the government has announced that it wants to crack down: "We want to punish traffickers of tobacco like those of narcotics", warned in

the JDD

this Sunday Gabriel Attal, Minister of Public Accounts, customs officer.

And to support his remarks, the Minister detailed the preparation of a more repressive legislative arsenal (three years in prison instead of one for retail sales, possibility of expelling foreign offenders from the territory, etc.) and ambitions to seizures noted.

“It takes a lot of money”

"That's better than drugs and selling death, isn't it?"

asks our dealer of the day.

“I do that between two jobs, sometimes I do construction or green spaces, but if there isn't, you need a lot of money”.

Chérif resells by the package or by the unit.

He is a little more expensive than his other colleagues: 6 euros per package, with certified quality.

In trade, the package of Marlboro red sells for 10.50 euros.

“I sometimes have Algerian ones, or cigarettes from duty free.

I prefer it “to homemade products”, they hurt your throat, sometimes you wonder what's in them”.

Because tobacco trafficking is not monolithic.

The sources of supply are varied, between cigarettes coming from abroad, and therefore of “international standard” quality, or others which are “manufactured” in clandestine workshops that the police sometimes dismantle.

Basically, there are counterfeiters and smugglers.

“It's each his own field.

Sometimes there are a few fights”

Chérif will say nothing, except a smile, of his sources of supply or the place where his goods are stored.

We imagine it in a hall of a neighboring building.

He calls himself a freelancer.

He buys himself and resells on his own account.

“It's each his own field.

Sometimes there are a few fights.

Other times it is the supplier who may want to place his seller.

Finally, we manage”.

And when there is no arrangement, the situation can seriously degenerate, several people have died this year in Marseille, shot or stabbed, for cigarette trafficking disputes.

A rise in the level of violence that did not escape the police.

At the beginning of November, the police headquarters commissioned a new police unit, resulting from the reinforcements received as part of the "Marseille plan in large", specially dedicated to this problem.

This takes care of the city center sector, and has been added to the one already in place for the northern sector.

A coherent grid of the territory, the prefecture considering that the northern sector, essentially the flea market, acts as a wholesaler for small retailers in the center.

A scheme hardly different from that of narcotics, finally.

This traffic "finances serious crime"

A device that allows the prefecture to multiply the harassment of street vendors in the center.

Like this day, when, a first patrol barely left, a new one arrives in the alleys.

“We take the top and come down this time?

“Agree the two police officers.

A merry-go-round that no longer impresses street vendors.

His packages stashed in the front pocket of his coat, Chérif blows just after concluding a transaction, as soon as the two agents have their backs turned: “It's all the time now.

Finally, you have that you don't have the goods placed on a stall [generally stacked crates], that's fine.

But sometimes they take everything and the money too.

So you start from scratch,” he explains.

Passing, before, by the prison box, now wants the government for which this traffic "finances serious crime" and "represents a tax loss of 2.5 to 3 billion euros", declared Gabriel Attal.

Justice

Val-d'Oise: A cigarette trafficking network dismantled, six people sentenced

Miscellaneous facts

Cigarette trafficking: 25,000 cartridges discovered in Cherbourg in pellet stoves

  • Company

  • Marseilles

  • Paca

  • Gabriel Attal

  • Cigarette

  • Traffic