The old port at Marseille
Two police officers were in custody in the southern French city of Marseille on Wednesday, pending investigation into alleged leaks of information to organised crime groups, police sources said. The officers were arrested Tuesday morning in part of a weeks-long corruption investigation.
Four other members of the police forces for the Bouches-du-Rhône and Gard departments who were also detained Tuesday, were later released, following examinations of their daily activities by the Inspector General of the National Police.
The officers are accused of having leaked information to some of the gangsters for which Marseille and the region around it are notorious. Having been the subject of press attention in France for decades, organised crime in the south of France was brought to international attention by the film The French Connection.
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said that he would demand “particularly exemplary punishment” if there was adequate “proof of misconduct”.
The police department declined to comment on the case.
Last Friday, another officer was investigated for allegedly passing on information to organised crime. His phone calls were reportedly bugged and, police say, information revealed led to last month’s arrests of several crime bosses, including the Campanella brothers and Bernard Barrresi.
Barresi had been on the run since 1994, when a court sentenced him to 20 years in jail for armed robbery.
The arrests came after several weeks of investigation into criminal networks, in which 15 people were taken in for questioning.
