Overview

• On 23 September, gendarmes conducted 17 searches across the Marseille area and in Italy, detaining about a dozen people and seizing €219,000, vehicles and luxury goods, bringing arrests to roughly twenty.
• An earlier operation on 7 September intercepted a convoy and recovered 55 kg of 24‑carat gold and more than €2.4 million in cash, with seven suspects charged and remanded.
• Investigators estimate the network processed over €30 million between October 2024 and August 2025 through weekly cash collections centered on Marseille and extending to Lyon and Paris.
• Couriers described as Syrian and Maghrebin teams transported cash to Italy in vehicles with sophisticated hides before conversion to gold and shipment toward Kosovo and Turkey.
• The case began with a December 2024 alert from Milan’s Guardia di Finanza and led to a January judicial inquiry and a Franco‑Italian joint team that mobilized about 100 gendarmes and the GIGN.