The alleged leader of the Marseille Yoda gang, Félix Bingui, a figure in narco-banditry, was arrested on Friday in Morocco, Gérald Darmanin announced on Saturday, confirming information from the newspaper Le Parisien. A turf war for control of deal points between this gang and a rival group called “DZ Mafia” has bloodied the city of Marseille, with 49 people killed in 2023.
A figure of Marseille drug banditry arrested in Morocco. The alleged leader of the Yoda gang, Félix Bingui, was arrested on Friday in Morocco, Gérald Darmanin announced on Saturday, March 9, confirming information from the newspaper Le Parisien.
“One of the biggest Marseille drug traffickers has been arrested in Morocco. Bravo to the police officers who are tirelessly continuing the fight against drug trafficking,” the Minister of the Interior wrote on X. “A big blow has been dealt today to drug banditry thanks to our cooperation with the Moroccan authorities, whom I thank.”
The prosecutor of the Republic of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone, confirmed to AFP the arrest in Casablanca of Félix Bingui, 33 years old.
He was the subject of an arrest warrant from a Marseille investigating judge for “importing narcotics in an organized gang, transport, detention, acquisition, transfer of narcotics, criminal association (…) money laundering and not justification of resources,” said the prosecution in a press release.
“This arrest is the result of remarkable cooperation from the Moroccan authorities who carried out his arrest and the meticulous and tireless work of the French Anti-Narcotics Office, the fugitives brigade of the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime, and the Marseille judicial police”, continues the prosecution.
According to a source close to the case, the arrest “follows a collaboration started several months ago by the PJ with Morocco”.
The bloody year 2023 in Marseille against a backdrop of drug trafficking
A turf war for control of juicy deal points – up to 80,000 euros in daily turnover in certain places – between the Yoda clan of Felix Bingui and a rival group called “DZ Mafia” has bloodied the city of Marseille, especially last year.
The year 2023 was, in fact, the bloodiest in Marseille with 49 people killed, including four collateral victims, and 123 injured, in violence linked to drug trafficking.
Some 35 of these “narchomicides” were directly linked to these rivalries between two clans, according to Pascal Bonnet, deputy to the judicial police in the south of France.
The main magistrates of France’s second city had also launched a cry of alarm earlier in the week, before the Senate Commission of Inquiry dedicated to the fight against drug trafficking in France.
“Narcobanditism acts in Marseille as a sort of gangrene which damages the social fabric,” said the president of the Marseille judicial court, Olivier Laurent, noting an “asymmetric” war between the State and these powerful clans and calling for a “ Marshall Plan to combat this crime.
Bingui, according to a source close to the investigation, was born in Gard but spent his entire “career” in trafficking in Marseille. He regularly traveled back and forth with Morocco until the outbreak in February 2023 of “the war” with the rival DZ Mafia gang, from which point he had no longer left this Maghreb country.
The Yoda clan was named after murals representing the character from the Star Wars film series designating some of his deal points in cities in Marseille. DZ Mafia refers to the national domain for Algeria in internet addresses.
With Bingui’s arrest, 19 “highly wanted individuals” for their important role in drug trafficking in Marseille were arrested, some of whom were abroad, according to figures from the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters.
Another figure of Marseille drug banditry, Karim Harrat known as “Rantanplan”, wanted for a series of homicides by an organized gang, was extradited from Morocco to France at the beginning of 2023.
