The Mossos d’Esquadra, together with the French police, have arrested 13 people in France allegedly linked to the murder of two young people on May 3, 2023 in Salou.
The war for control of drug trafficking in Marseille and its surroundings moved to the tourist municipality of Tarragonès when members of the criminal organization ‘DZ Mafia’ shot dead two rivals from the ‘Yoda’ clan. The criminals fired with their AK-47 rifles, causing the immediate death of one of them and seriously wounding a second, who died hours later in the hospital.
During their escape, the agents arrested one of the hitmen in the Mèdol service area, at kilometer 237 of the AP-7, who ended up in prison by order of the investigating court number 6 of Tarragona.
During eight months of investigation, the Mossos d’Esquadra and the French National Police have worked together to arrest those involved in the double homicide committed in the Plaza de las Palmeras in Salou on May 3, 2023. As explained by those responsible From the police forces, two men were murdered at the hands of a group made up of “especially violent” people due to their links with organized crime and drug trafficking in Marseille.
The first man died inside his vehicle while the second victim died hours later at the Joan XXIII Hospital in Tarragona, after being hit by different shots. The investigators explained that the action of the aggressors was rapid and that firearms were used, some of which were “war weapons.” After the attack, the hitmen fled quickly and were located in the Mèdol rest area, on the AP-7 highway northbound, where they detained one of the members of the group.
The individual had just set fire to the vehicle, with which they had fled and robbed Marseille. Inside they located two short firearms, a long weapon and two hand grenades. The detainee was brought into judicial custody of the investigating court number 6 of Tarragona, which ordered his imprisonment.
The investigation revealed that behind this double murder there were people linked to organized crime in Marseille and who had allegedly prepared the action from France. The work of the Mossos scientific police, through lophoscopic and ballistic studies, made it possible to locate and locate the perpetrators of the events. Given this link between the group and French territory, the researchers contacted the French liaison officers in Catalonia to share information and coordinate the investigation.
Given the strong links that the case presented with criminal violence, and more particularly with Marseille drug trafficking, the JIRS Prosecutor’s Office of Marseille requested the Office Central de Lutte Contre le Crime Organisé and the Judicial Police of Marseille to initiate a joint and coordinated investigation by the events in French territory. On July 26, the creation of a Joint Investigation Team between the Mossos d’Esquadra and the French National Police with the support of the Civil Guard in Catalonia was signed at Eurojust. Then, the case was opened in France for the crimes of murder by an organized group, robbery by an organized group and receipt of property, robbery, violation of weapons legislation, use of false license plates, and participation in a criminal association.
During the months of investigation, the agents have acted on a criminal network rooted in Marseille and its logistical structure that acted as a group of the Marseille criminal network ‘DZ Mafia’. Surveillance and controls have made it possible to identify the four members of the criminal group and the different supports they had in France. Likewise, they confirmed that some support people had also traveled to Spain at the time of the events to locate the victims.
It was an itinerant group with a “high capacity for movement,” according to the researchers. However, those involved in the double crime in Salou were arrested in France for other intentional homicides and attempted homicides in a context of drug trafficking.
Specifically, on January 15, an “important” operation was carried out coordinated by the two investigating judges of the JIRS of Marseille and the magistrate of Tarragona, coordinated by EUROJUST. More than 80 French investigators, with the support of the Marseille Investigation and Intervention Brigade and in the presence of investigators from the Mossos d’Esquadra, arrested five men and eight women, between 19 and 55 years old. Some of these people were already in French prisons for other reasons.
In the judicial records and entries, electronic material, documentation and telephones were seized. These 13 detainees join the first arrest made by the Mossos in Tarragona. All of this has allowed us to know the different roles that those arrested played as well as their degree of involvement in the events investigated.
