One of the bullets in the Salou shooting that killed two young people flew out the window of a neighbor's car. Laia Solanellas (Europa Press)
The drug war in Marseille has reached the Pyrenees and is also claiming lives in Catalonia. The Mossos and the French police have arrested 13 people (8 women and 5 men) who were involved in the murder of two young people with Kalashnikovs and grenades in Salou last May who were hiding on the coast of Tarragona. “They had the ability to form a command and position themselves abroad” to commit the double crime, warns French prosecutor Nicolas Bessone of the tentacles of the Marseille mafia. Between January and December, between two and three murders or attempted murders were committed per week in the French city, and the year ended with 63 murders and a hundred injured. The numbers have fallen sharply since December thanks to the investigation into the double crime in Salou. “But tomorrow that could change again,” they warn.
The murders of the two young people, aged 25 and 28, in Salou were committed in front of a hotel on the night of May 3rd. It was a long gun shot that “lasted 90 seconds” and 35 cartridges were fired, said the deputy head of the General Criminal Investigation Department of the Mossos d'Esquadra, mayor Joan Carles Granja, at a press conference in Marseille. When they arrived at the scene, police found a man dead behind the wheel of the vehicle he was in and, about 30 meters away, another seriously injured man who managed to escape and died in hospital the next day. They both belonged to the Yoda clan. The murderers from the rival DZ Mafia clan caught the victims completely unexpectedly: According to investigators, one of them was watching football on his cell phone. Both groups are waging open war for control of drug outlets in the city.
The investigation led to the agents, in collaboration with the French liaisons in Catalonia and the Marseille police, uncovering a strand. On the same day of the double crime, Catalan police arrested one of the perpetrators in an AP-7 rest area who tried to set fire to one of the vehicles they were using, which actually belonged to the victims. The other three people involved managed to escape. At this point they also identified three women who were with the two dead men and who went from witnesses to suspects because they had tipped off the rival clan to the place where the victims were hiding. “One of them plays a particularly active role,” says the police. “There is a striking feminization of this mafia,” prosecutor Bessone added, referring to the role of women in controlling drug outlets.
One of the two dead people was being investigated for murder in France, which is why he fled to Salou, the police explain. “Catalonia is a haven,” declared the mayor of Mossos, who denied any connection between the violence caused by the drug trade in Marseille and the situation in Catalonia, where specific “opportunistic attacks” are being carried out. However, the Marseille prosecutor warned that organized crime knows no borders. Catalonia, especially the Girona region, is traditionally a settlement and second home for mafia clans, where they tried to remain unnoticed.
The first information from the Mossos in a joint investigation lasting eight months has allowed the Marseille police to deactivate seven commandos at different stages, as explained at the press conference, which has brought a certain calm to the city. During this time, the four alleged perpetrators of the double crime in Salou were arrested for their involvement in other shootings and several murders they planned and carried out, without managing to kill anyone. Police suspect the teens who pull the trigger are paid in advance and risk being killed if they don't carry out the job. Police sources point to concerns about the “narco culture” spreading in Marseille, where young people are joining the drug war via social networks. “They capture them through platforms like Tik Tok,” he says.
The final point of the operation occurred on January 15, when about 80 French agents and six Mossos d'esquadra were involved in the arrest of the 13 members of the DZ Mafia clan under investigation for the crime. During the operation, women played a special role, most of whom were still free. Two of them went to prison. Police credit them with a key role in the logistics of carrying out the Salou murders, which caused a stir in one of Catalonia's major tourist attractions. The case, conducted by the Investigative Court No. 6 of Tarragona, involves, among other things, open murder, mayhem, vehicle theft and damage to property. In France she is under investigation for murder and robbery by an organized group, reception, possession of weapons, use of false license plates and participation in a criminal organization.
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It is not the first time that the Marseille mafia has claimed its dead in Salou. In May 2022, gunmen shot a young man aged 20 at close range as he walked down the street. I spent a few days on vacation in the city. The witnesses to the event managed to capture one of the participants in the express crime. Months later, Catalan police arrested the other three suspects in France, who had traveled to Salou for revenge.
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