Kamel N., a drug baron from Marseilles, was arrested in Brussels on Tuesday, Belgium’s Federal Police press service confirmed.
The arrest was made by the Federal Police’s Fugitive Active Search Team (FAST), in close collaboration with French police services. The man was the subject of two European arrest warrants, one of which followed a twelve-year prison sentence.
According to TF1, Kamel N., who hails from the Bassens Housing Estate in Marseille, was for a long time the head of a cartel from La Maurelette, another neighborhood in the French city.
Between 2015 and 2018, he is said to have been associated with the ‘Blacks’ and to have waged a bloody turf war with this clan against the ‘Gitans,’ another gang active in drug trafficking.
During this period, Kamel N. had a virtual monopoly on drug and cocaine trafficking in Marseille. He had been on the run for several years, but continued to manage his drug trafficking network from a distance, according to the private French TV station.
He was arrested on Tuesday in a house near Brussels-Midi station. His identification was complicated by the fact that he was going by false identity papers and had undergone cosmetic surgery.
