French criminal organizations remain mainly active in the field of drug trafficking, a sector where their level – still considered intermediate compared to much more extensive structures such as the Dutch Mocro Maffia or the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta – confines them to reception and then to distribution of the goods. On the other hand, according to a Europol report on the 821 most threatening criminal groups on the continent, foreign organizations have long targeted the country in three particular areas, which place France among the states most concerned, like Belgium, Germany, Italy or Malta.
Trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes is one of them, a finding already highlighted in the report on “The state of organized crime in France”, established by the Information, Intelligence and Strategic Analysis Service on Organized Crime, in 2023. The year 2021 notably saw a “dark record”, observed this document, with 1,133 victims recorded. A figure down slightly in 2022, with 966 victims.
The Central Office for the Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings had, for its part, noted, during the same period, a phenomenon of “sustainable change” marked by “housed” prostitution in 80% of cases – as opposed to street prostitution – and largely digitized, via sites or advertisements on the Internet.
Second point of concern for the public authorities: the trafficking of migrants, carried out by real structured networks, the most active of which are essentially of Iraqi-Kurdish or Iranian origin. The number of dismantlings carried out by investigation services – 325 in 2022 alone – gives an idea of the scale.
Traveling teams
Finally, a lesser known phenomenon places France in first place among the countries concerned: organized burglaries and thefts, carried out during real campaigns of varying duration, from several days to a few weeks. Particularly notable in eastern France, these “serial facts” are often the mark of itinerant teams – often made up of young women from the Roma community of Serbia – targeting private homes and homes, with a modus operandi linked to the multiplication of intermediate loot (computer equipment or jewelry, small sums of money immediately accessible) rather than to “big shots”.
Other goods, the theft of which requires more advanced skills, also whet the appetite of more seasoned teams, such as medical equipment (ultrasound machines, cryotherapy machines, milling machines) or, a growing trend, high-end bicycles. In October 2021, twenty-two bicycles belonging to members of the Italian national cycling team (as well as a Lavazza brand coffee machine) were stolen during the World Track Championships in Roubaix (North), for a total damage estimated between 400,000 and 700,000 euros. Two young men of Bosnian origin were arrested less than two months later in Besançon, and members of a network were apprehended in Romania while trying to sell the cycles for 1,500 euros each.