International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 47

International Journal on Criminology
economically, and politically, to engage with corrupt politicians, engage in
symbiotic activities of drugs and weapons trafficking, money laundering,
in fact, all forms of criminal activity. And this is not the only territory of
this kind in the world.
FRANCE’S CRIMINAL REALITY
France’s criminal reality can be observed mainly in territorial criminal gangs
of a hybrid nature, which can seem like micro-states. We will try to explain
this somewhat shocking allegation, which will however show to what extent
the understanding of criminal reality is indispensable to the criminal lawyer.
Here we have an archetype, a laboratory for a criminologist. The trials of the
case reported on here have provided significant information for the understanding
of the most common criminal entities in France.
In the autumn of 2011, the police put an end to the activities of Shitland.
This was not a theme park. It was the name that a criminal gang gave to “its” territory,
an area transformed into a drugs supermarket and whose population had
been exploited. For many years, the inhabitants of a housing estate in the suburbs
of Paris 7 lived in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, endured the constant
presence of aggressive drug addicts facing a shortage, and experienced a simple
but effective form of corruption.
A gang had taken possession of the area’s four towers and had established a
large-scale cannabis trafficking operation there. The ringleaders of this gang were
three cousins: two organized the operations in Champigny-sur-Marne, whilst the
third lived in the Netherlands, from where he dispatched most of the goods, delivered
using the go fast method. Buyers came from all over the Paris area, as Shitland
was reputed for the quality of its goods. There could be up to five hundred “customers”
visiting there per day and it was not uncommon to see queues forming at
the foot of tower blocks.
Shitland’s customers were closely managed and monitored. From the moment
of entry, a message reading “Welcome to Shitland” was visible to consumers.
Further on, there was another piece of graffiti: “prepare your tickets and unfold
them thank you!” Even further ahead, there was a warning: “fake ticket = tied up
in the basement with a beating.” The customers were then searched before they
finally saw the person who would furnish them with the precious product. And
that was that for the “business” part.
On the upper floors of the tower blocks, there were the “nannies,” that is,
the “ordinary” inhabitants of the tower blocks, corrupted by the gang, and paid to
store the drugs in their apartments. They were paid around two thousand euro per
month, three or four times the cost of their rent .... Even higher up were squatted
apartments, in other words those occupied with the paid complicity of the owners
7 The housing estate of Boullereaux, in Champigny-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne).
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