Picasso canvases, tons of hash and hustlers: a mobster recounts 50 years in the mafia

"Milou", a 73-year-old Corso-Marseille mobster, recounts his childhood, his crimes, his best shots, his joys and his misfortunes in a book published at the end of October, with the help of Thierry Colombié, writer, specialist in organized crime . Interview.

Snowy's life would make a very good Scorsese. But without the redemption sequence that the director imposes on all his mafia characters. Orphaned at two years old, stuck in organized crime at twenty, the Corso-Marseillais lived fifty years in the "middle". He first imposed himself between clandestine bets and robberies, before becoming an essential link in the French Connection, then the thinking head of the Sicilian French Connection… Which earned him his first heavy conviction. Leaving Baumettes in the 90s, he reinvented himself by trafficking in stolen goods from the docks, then resumed drug trafficking – hash – without ever forgetting to multiply the sources of income… Interview with the survivor of a time that we believe to be over.

Why did you write this book? You do not take risks with your "friends", or with justice, by telling so many crimes?

Legally, no, because there is prescription. With my friends ? After sixty years of organized crime, three-quarters are dead, anyway I assume… I have heard so many untruths, clichés, things that do not reflect what we experienced in Marseille and elsewhere , in the four corners of the world… When I see mythomaniacs parading on the Ruquier plateau or elsewhere, guys I've seen selling doses of drugs on the corner of the street or in prison, who think they're godfathers, which recount the scenes that others have experienced, it makes me feel more tense… Fortunately, I know how to keep my nerves, I learned that very early on, which was a godsend. I am now 73 years old, the curtain will soon fall, it was now or never to tell some truths, not all of them of course.

Is it a way of compensating for silence and discretion, mandatory throughout your career?

There must be a bit of that. I have been silent for 60 years. From the age of eleven until today, I have never told anyone, except Thierry Colombié (author of the book, editor's note) whom I have known for 13 years. Even in my environment, with people of second or third category, I didn't tell anything. But in this book, I didn't let go, I only told a quarter of a quarter of what I experienced. But for a cave, a normal individual, it's more than enough to understand the life of a mobster.

Have any “friends” read the book?

Yes, they told me like you, “but why are you telling all this?! You should not have…". We discussed, I convinced them. One of them even bought 30 copies, for all his family, his relatives in Corsica, and elsewhere. The environment that I knew has been diluted. The young people, it's normal, pushed the old people against the walls. It's the rule, and not just among crooks. Today, with the explosion of all types of traffic, especially drugs, the sun is rising for everyone, even for guys who haven't grown up, like me in the middle. That's not going to say that the environment has lost its touch, quite the contrary, that's what I say in the book. We weren't nice, we weren't Care Bears, but we obeyed certain laws, rules, we functioned like a sect. We grew up in this Corsican, Sicilian, Calabrian, Marseille mentality. In this melting pot which was our credo. The rules are still there, trust being the basis, the bedrock of any negotiation, otherwise there wouldn't be all this colossal, enormous business. But the wheel turns to the point that some do not hesitate to take the machine gun to kill their neighbor, steal the nanny who hides three kilos of hash... They are wolves, Apaches, guys who will never be part of organized crime, too showy, too bright. Too many errors.

You were a jack-of-all-trades in crime: robbery, pimping, murder, horse racing, dealing in hash, coke, heroes, counterfeit money, goods that fell from the truck… Which field did you prefer?

Ah, there's a judge who said to me: “Sir, when it comes to banditry, you've done everything except rape”. It's true that I have the full range of crimes and misdemeanors to my credit… I found myself recruited, it always comes down to the family, the base of the mafia, and I did everything. But what I liked the most were the trips, for the heroin traffic… Well now I know that heroin is a scourge, something horrible and infamous. At the time we didn't know the harm we were doing, we didn't understand that we were propelling misfortune. We said to ourselves that we weren't forcing anyone to consume, we weren't feeling guilty at all. Later, very heavy sentences fell, with twenty years, and we accepted, we said to ourselves that it was deserved... In reality, I admit it, I always took pleasure in doing in banditry, all areas. The robbery, for example, I liked: going home, robbing 25 or 30 people, taking the money and sharing it an hour later… The heart beats, the adrenaline, it's exciting. Then the security systems improved, and we had to move on.

Compared to other mobsters with a CV as well stocked as yours, you have done relatively little in prison (14 years anyway). How do you explain it?

Oh I know, and I'm a little proud of it. It's psychology. Everyone is corruptible, everyone, especially the one who sings it louder than the others! I saw the bishops in Rome, the politicians in Grenoble, the cops in Marseilles… But I have this chance, when I speak with someone, to know if he is reliable. By a word or a gesture, by setting a trap for him or by making him drink to measure his level of sincerity... For us when we trust someone, he holds our life in his hands, so it's very important to know who you can trust. In the industry, I was even sometimes brought in to test a guy, find out if he held up, if we could continue with him… In 9 cases out of 10, I said “stop everything”. Good after, I still made fourteen years…

The fact of always being on your guard, of being wary of everything and everyone, all the time, didn't that weigh on you?

With us, paranoia is essential. In organized crime, for people who decide, paranoia is a protection. If I saw the same car go by twice, it wasn't normal: you had to move around, go around the roundabout three times, run through two red lights, take the wrong way to see if the car was still there. Breaking the wire, as they say, driving the cops or thugs who wanted to kill us crazy… Paranoia is a way of life. But you get used to it, it becomes second nature, and it saves lives! Today, I no longer look at shoes. Before, the cops had special shoes because they walked a lot… We looked at everything, and we were taught to be wary of everything. The one who wasn't paranoid, he wasn't normal, we put him on tricard, we thought he was a cheese merchant, not a guy to put around the round table to send a ton of dope to the States -United…

In the book, you mention murders for which you have never been worried by justice…

Well the murders, I won't tell you more. I can't talk about it. I was born of Corsican parents, and at home, we are wary of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And for me, it's not murder, I'm not in the business of killing to gain money or territory. Me it's “you disrespect me, I'll kill you before you kill me”. And then I was not a specialist in the matter either… In my family, I had two uncles killed, what should I do? Cry over the coffin? No, they had to be avenged, a point of honor.

Are there things you regret doing?

Yes Yes of course. Pimping, in particular. At the time (in the early 1960s, editor's note), women were under a leaden screed, the man was the man. It has completely changed, women can do anything, good for them, good for us. I found myself in a life, in a vision where a woman was just a way to make money, and I regret it. We were macho, bad people, but that was also the view at the time. A woman had to bring in the equivalent of 1,000 euros a day, so 5,000 euros with five women, and if one of them couldn't, it was because she was really stupid, and we sent her back to her country. , or we sent him to Africa or Venezuela, saying to him “Get out of the way”. That, I regret, I would not do it again.

Your background shows that you have qualities of interpersonal skills, negotiations and organization that could have made you a businessman. Have you ever been tempted to return to the legal system, to become an ordinary entrepreneur, a “cellar” as you say?

Today, at 73 years old with hindsight, I agree with you 200%, but I was born during the war, of resistant parents, in a family of thugs. At home, there were people on the run, those who took me on their knees to sing songs to me, I saw them a week later with their throats slit on the front page of the newspaper. I grew up there. Then maybe I could have been a businessman, but I never got the chance. I was grilled from the start by being stuck with organized crime at a very young age... And there to do healthy business (legal, editor's note), you have to walk with honest people, who have never been convicted, figureheads . I was behind, and them in the window. On the other hand, friends, gangsters that I educated, younger than me, who are fifty, sixty years old today, have become important businessmen, multi-cards. They frequent elected officials, ministers, are friends with the most important notables of the region, of the country. Some have even joined Freemasonry, an international network which offers enormous advantages… They have never been condemned, have used my advice. So much the better. I repeat, France is not the country of Care Bears!

In your book, you mention the “Duck gang” and their “heirs” who would have considerable influence in the community. How can such an association be so unknown to the media and the courts?

The group was in fact known, arch-known, but they always managed to pass between the drops, and as they all died or almost, I allowed myself to speak about it. It is a group of Marseillais of Neapolitan origin, who split in two between Marseille and Paris, and who dismissed the Guérinis. The Ducks group was into heroin, nightclubs, casinos, it worked well for them. Some bought themselves stud farms, horses, which enabled them to fix the races better, I know that better than anyone, I was one of the biggest bookmakers in the south. A way like any other to become a billionaire, right? They're very smart people: they'd spot guys, keep one in a hundred, and say, 'You're not getting any money from us, but today it's like you just made 10 million dollars. euros: when you leave us, you will have the know-how”. And all the people I've known who graduated from the “University of the Ducks” became millionaires, especially in Paris, and use politicians.

Relations between politicians and mafia remain common?

Of course, politicians are essential for us, especially the right… The left is of little or no interest to anyone… In organized crime, leftist politicians, with a few exceptions, are imbeciles, we cannot not trust them. On the other hand, on the right they are intelligent people with whom we can discuss. Not all of them either, especially the "sons of" who didn't have to fight like jackals to become important... When we have a case, when we are worried, a minister, a henchman of course, comes helps us out, but on the other hand, if the minister has problems, we have to help him. An exchange of services that will be worth a thousand others, especially when it happens with the family. And who better than the very, very organized crime, what is called the Honorable Society, to help the politicians, we who are aware of everything? If there are cases of terrorism, problems with young people from the suburbs, what else do I know, in France, in Africa, in Central America, who better than us to give them a hand? Well, you would have to talk about it for whole days to explain it to you, but there are a few examples in the book that are enlightening to say the least…

In the book, you mention Charles Pasqua, and the pride of the community when he was appointed minister...

I have not rubbed shoulders with him, I never wanted to. I didn't like the character. For me, he was a “traitor”, a thug turned Vidocq, but I had to accept him since he was friends with friends, close friends, and not just to drink Ricard. But on this point, I can't say more except that it allowed him to make a fortune in Canada... Subsequently, clever, he jumped at the opportunity to enter politics, it's there that one obtains immunity, none elsewhere, and he launched himself alongside the Great Charles, de Gaulle. With the SAC (Service d'Action Civique, editor's note), he made the marriage between cops and thugs by recruiting crooks in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and especially in Grenoble, and cops too happy to frequent an environment, ours, which fascinated them. I recognize that I had the SAC card, but like Pasqua, it was an opportunity: we knew that if we were arrested by the cops, it was enough to show the blue-white-red card to leave too quick. The card had the value of carrying a weapon. Imagine what that entails… But ideologically, that wasn't my thing. We saw it with the affair of the Auriol massacre, the assassination of Judge Michel, the one who enchristed me in the Sicilian Connection. There again there is a lot to say, which I do in the book.

You explain that one recognizes a “man of honour” by his high-placed relations with magistrates, police officers and politicians. Have you ever made friends with these people?

Already I would make a distinction for the magistrates, who are not, contrary to what many believe, null or incompetent or downright "perverse or psychopathic" as Henri Guaino says, who knows what I'm talking about... I don't have any crossed only two or three in my career, but the magistrates are not really corruptible. Cops, yes, I have always known some, and I will still know some, even if I am retired. It's no coincidence that business in Marseille is doing so well. Organized crime and the cops stick together, and everyone protects everyone. As for politics, we have already talked about it…

In the book, you mention Johnny Hallyday or Serge Gainsbourg, whom you took home several times. Relationships are frequent between the mafia milieu and that of celebrities?

Inevitably. At night, after 3am, you meet all of Paris in nightclubs or elsewhere. They are people who like to slum, they have a kind of fascination for gangsters. And then we have this advantage of always having the goods available, the best coke, and since they all take it, or almost... In addition, we don't always make them pay: personally, I've already had offer a hundred grams to a celebrity. It's fascinating for them, who usually get a little tricked by drug dealers, and by their bodyguards too, who take a commission. In comparison, we are paradise, we are Santa Claus for them!

During the French Connection, 500 kilos of heroin left every three months for the United States, everything stops with a series of convictions and dismantling of the lab in the mid-1970s...

Yes, from 1975 to 1979, the heroine, our heroine, the Marseillaise, the Rolls of heroines, there were hardly any left. From 78-79, I did it again with the Sicilians, but not on such large volumes, we only sent 40 or 50 kilos, but the prices had been multiplied by seven, by ten. A kilo of heroin was then trading at 130,000 euros, or even 160,000 in New York or Miami.

You must have had huge cash inflows? In the book you often say that you “threw the money out the window”, how concretely?

When you have large sums like that, especially in cash, the money burns your hands. I was stuck in organized crime, constantly in the sights of the police, I couldn't invest, or else through a relative or someone from the family, but it's "dirty", as they say, because you you can send him to prison for concealment of money laundering, money from drug trafficking. So it's true that at one point, we didn't know what to do with this money, we bought cars, clothes, cops, we bathed in luxury, we went to all the casinos, we slept in finest hotels. We thought it would go on forever.

And when you lose five tonnes of cannabis or forty kilos of heroin during a customs check, as has happened to you, how do you react?

It's not a loss, it's an adventure. When we buy cannabis, for example, we first pay only a quarter or half, and if the goods are seized, the buyer will pay the other half later, as if he had to repay a loan. Trust is the foundation, and not just in our environment. And then at the beginning of the 1980s, the kilo was not expensive, barely 150 euros. For the five tons of chichon, for example, we paid a little less than half. Afterwards, we diversified the access routes, we sent 500 kilos on one side, a ton on the other, two tons stashed in trucks of fruit from Morocco, those that are never searched... Little by little , we reimburse the seller without having a caliber on the temple – that's in the movies. It's like a bank loan, we negotiate and we take the time to pay. A loss stimulates activity: everyone rolls up their sleeves and says to themselves “we'll make up for it”. And this is what happens, always, as one and one make two.

You tell in the book that you discovered a hundred paintings by Picasso one day during a burglary… Were you euphoric at that time?

No, we'd rather have kilos of gold stolen from jewelry stores. It's a utopia, Picasso's paintings, it's too complicated: there is a very long prescription for works of art. And it is above all unsaleable. The case ended badly. I have friends in Bastia, from La Brise de Mer, who stole “Impression soleil levant” by Monet, they never managed to sell it. They even cut off a piece to send it to the Ministry of Culture, saying “if you don't release this prisoner, we'll set the web on fire”. The ministry replied “do it, we will make a copy”…

You are married, you have had children, it was not complicated to lead this criminal life, necessarily risky with your family life?

If of course, very complicated. The close, family entourage has of course suffered. When my photo appeared on the front page of the newspaper with the title “the shadow man of the mafia”, it was a disaster for my family and those who thought that I was an antique dealer. And when I was in prison, what hurt the most was not my imprisonment, but the fact that my family suffered the consequences. When you lead this life, out of the ordinary, it's a bit dirty to have a wife and children, but that's how it happened...

What is the shot that made you the most proud?

It's not very spectacular, but I think it was the time when I made fake ten-franc coins. I had two factories in the north of Italy, which typed the parts, and I received around 100,000 euros a month, without doing anything. I flooded the entire Paca region. I didn't shed blood, I didn't poison anyone while having big money in my pocket… In reality, to be honest, we were proud of ourselves when we passed under the radar of the cops, and not only in France , and that we had the feeling of screwing up the system… Which gave it back to us! Anyway, what I'm most proud of is that I'm still alive and healthy. Basta!

Truand, written by Milou with Thierry Colombié has been available since October 28 from Robert Laffont editions. 393 pages, 21 euros.