Mohamed Djeha, one of the most important drug traffickers in France, arrested in Algeria
Franco-Algerian Mohamed Djeha, alias "Mimo", one of the biggest drug traffickers in France and number 1 in drug trafficking in Marseille, was arrested last Thursday in Algeria.
Presented as one of the biggest drug traffickers in France, Mohamed Djeha, known as "Mimo", who began his criminal rise in Marseille, was arrested on Thursday June 15 in Algeria after years of being hunted.
"It's a very big catch because he's someone who can be considered the number 1 in drug trafficking in Marseille, but he also organised the importation of narcotics for other French regions", whether cannabis or cocaine, a source close to the case told AFP: "He is one of the biggest French traffickers" and was on the list of "priority targets" of the French Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast).
The arrest was carried out by the Algerian police on Thursday in Oran (north-west Algeria), Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens and police sources told AFP, confirming information from the Journal du Dimanche .
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin thanked investigators for their work and "the Algerian authorities for their cooperation."
Dual French-Algerian nationality
"This arrest took place after the trip in May of Ofast (French Anti-Narcotics Office) to Algeria, then of the Director General of the Police and the Central Director of the Judicial Police in June, to discuss cooperation between the two countries and in particular the situation of Mr. Djeha," another source close to the case told AFP.
"The French judicial authorities have reported the facts [for which he was convicted in France] to Algeria so that he can be tried there," added this source, rejecting a priori any possibility of extradition for this forty-year-old who has dual French-Algerian nationality.
Born on September 21, 1981 in Béjaïa (250 kilometers east of Algiers), Mohamed Djeha Idri, 41, nicknamed "Mimo" but also sometimes "Papipaolo" or "Suarez", had been the subject of an arrest warrant since 2019 after being sentenced to ten years in prison in a vast case of money laundering of drug trafficking in Marseille, in the city of La Castellane.
Chefs abroad
He was also sentenced in May 2023, in his absence, to thirty years of criminal imprisonment by the Aix-en-Provence Assize Court, found guilty of having ordered an assassination committed on the A55 motorway near Marseille in 2017.
Many neighborhoods in France’s second city are plagued by drug trafficking – mainly cannabis – and wars for control of points of sale are increasingly deadly. In 2022, around thirty people lost their lives in drug-related score-settling. Since the beginning of this year, 23 people have been killed, including a mother, who could be a collateral victim, on May 10.
The victims are generally young men, sometimes teenagers, at the bottom of the trafficking ladder, with the big bosses, like Mohamed Djeha, hiding abroad, in the Middle East, the Maghreb or Spain.
"Since 2018 and the first trial, 'Mimo' no longer resided in France. We knew that he was traveling between Dubai, Algeria and Morocco," a source close to the case told AFP. It was only recently that investigators were certain that he had settled in Algeria and that he was avoiding Dubai for fear of being arrested there and then handed over to French justice.
"Intelligence center"
For several years, Ofast has made it a priority to track down major traffickers, often based abroad, thanks in particular to an "intelligence unit" of around thirty people, with some significant successes.
In March 2021, another trafficker considered a drug lord on French territory, the Franco-Algerian Moufide Bouchibi, was arrested in Dubai and then transferred to France. A few months later, a man suspected of piloting a major drug trafficking ring in Marseille, Hakim Berrebouh, was also arrested in Dubai and handed over to French justice.
More recently, Karim Harrat, alias "Rantanplan", a Marseille resident wanted for a series of gang homicides committed between 2018 and 2020 in connection with drug trafficking and who had fled to Dubai and then to Morocco, was extradited to France.
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