On May 14, 2024, a prison convoy was ambushed at the Incarville tollbooth in northern France. The target was Mohammed Amra, a repeat offender involved in drug trafficking. The heavily armed attackers showed no mercy, killing two prison officers and severely injuring three others. It took nearly a year to track him down and arrest him in Romania.
The “Arma Affair” is symbolic of a powerful and quick escalation in violence linked to the drug trade. In 2023, in Marseille, around thirty young men were killed and one hundred injured in clashes between two rival gangs, amounting to a level of violence never before seen in the city.
For field agents, police officers and magistrates alike, this is the result of a growing “narco-culture”, a term coined by South American cartels: a culture where allegiance to the gang takes precedence over everything.
This investigation delves into the development of a pocket of extreme, drug-related violence in France.