Inside the French drug gangs recruiting children to kill

Warning: Strong language and descriptions of sexual violence

Although she had just bought hashish from a drug dealer, the woman decided to call the police.

It was because, along with the illegal drugs, she had been handed a note by the young seller during their brief meeting on a Marseille housing estate in 2022.

"We're being held captive and need help. We are 15-years-old," it read.

The teenage dealer, a French court heard earlier this year, was one of two boys being held by a gang which they had both initially approached looking for paid work - albeit illegal.

One boy had been tasked with handling money, the other worked streets around the Frais-Vallon estate. Soon though, bosses had accused them of being responsible for "shortfalls" in takings.

What followed were regular beatings, the court was told, and being forced to dance naked in front of a camera as a form of blackmail. One of the boys was also raped.

Hours after the woman was passed the note, the two teenagers had tried to escape from a second-storey window, injuring themselves in the process. One managed to get away, while the other was caught, beaten and stabbed, but survived.

Arrests were made. Photos on the phone of one of the boys' alleged torturers showed several other young men in a similarly distressed condition. Six men have since been handed hefty sentences for what happened to the two teenagers.

The boys' story highlights the grip that drug gangs hold over parts of France's second city.

While the blend of Mediterranean culture, street art and hip-hop scene has made Marseille a popular tourist destination - beyond the city centre, it is another story.

After months of trying, a BBC team managed to enter this dangerous world - centred on deprived streets and high-rise housing estates in the port city, which police do not enter lightly.

We found an environment where ruthless gangs lure vulnerable young people with promises of easy money, but end up trapping them in a world of drug dealing, brutality and exploitation.

We saw how gangs use social media to recruit hitmen and spoke to several young men caught up in the violence. From prison, one gang member accused of involvement in several murders explained how his "cold-bloodedness" had helped him rise through the ranks.

The city's most powerful gang, DZ Mafia, emerged victorious from a bloody turf war and is now one of the most feared criminal organisations in France.

DZ is the official internet country code for Algeria, where one of the gang's founders, a French-Algerian called Mehdi Laribi, was detained earlier this year under a French arrest warrant.

The criminal outfit rose to prominence in 2023, when it became the first French gang to capitalise on its notoriety by releasing video statements - using social media to market itself as a brand - says the head of the country's anti-drug trafficking unit, Dimitri Zoulas.

Its most recent statement came in July, when the mayor of a nearby town had to be placed in police protection, after intelligence suggested he was in danger of being targeted by the group.

In an online video, six masked men dressed in black stood behind a table - as one of them read a statement denying DZ Mafia's involvement.

France's expanding illegal drugs market - which has seen a surge in cocaine imports alongside high volumes of cannabis and synthetic drugs - has also helped the gang grow rapidly.

The number of cocaine users in France is expected soon to reach two million, says Zoulas, up from 600,000 in 2017. Drug smuggling across France generates €7bn (£5.9bn) a year, involving 200,000 people, he adds.

Many of those distributing the drugs are children and the authorities say the number of minors caught up in trafficking is increasing. During 2025, more than 10,000 children were involved in some way, according to official figures.

DZ Mafia is a prime example. To reach more customers, it needs more gang members - more children.

We have found it is now recruiting young people from across France - not just to sell drugs, but to carry out kidnap, torture and murder.

They are a generation seen as easy to corrupt, but also expendable, by the kingpins who typically control them from prison or overseas.

And, as police and judges warn, once these children enter Marseille's underworld, it is very hard to get them out.

Few know the human cost of Marseille's gangs like mother Karine Brouillard - who lives at the other end of France, almost as far from the Mediterranean coast as you can get.