Marseille: a man sentenced for the attempted extortion of influencer Carla Moreau

A man was sentenced on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday to five years in prison for an attempted extortion of a Marseille influencer, Carla Moreau, by posing as the DZ Mafia. On July 23, while Carla Moreau was in Monaco with her mother, the latter's vehicle, parked on the property of her Marseille villa, was set on fire at 1:39 a.m. by a Molotov cocktail jet.

A phone, a charger and a ransom note are placed on the porch. “We are the DZ Mafia, an organized and structured team. Your safety is now in our hands,” states the message, referring to the powerful Marseille criminal group originating from drug trafficking. In exchange for 60,000 euros, the text promises: “If these conditions are respected, your peace of mind will be restored to you.” A phone call was announced the same evening at 8 p.m., accompanied by another warning: “The consequences are irreversible, the only and final warning.”

Surveillance cameras at the villa showed a man in construction overalls putting the phone down nine minutes before the fire. A trace of DNA on the phone's battery will confuse Aïssa H., a 40-year-old from Marseille known for armed robberies of footballers around fifteen years earlier. With his partner, he frequents the companion of Carla Moreau's mother, all three being fans of the nightlife. This trio - identified at the end of September and left at large - appeared for attempted extortion, arson and criminal conspiracy.

In court, Aïssa H. delivered convoluted explanations, evoking an insurance coup, the fire of the influencer's mother's vehicle with the aim of recovering the insurance money. “The goal was not to demand a ransom from Carla,” he maintains, but to divert the attention of the insurance company. The explanation did not convince the prosecutor who considered that there had indeed been an attempted racketeering, using the threatening acronym DZ Mafia. On the other hand, the involvement of the influencer's mother's companion, pointed out by Aïssa H., did not convince the prosecutor who requested his release, a position followed by the court.

Aïssa H's partner, present at the scene, for her part declared herself unrelated to the plan, asserting that she was sleeping in the back of a vehicle, knocked out by a cocktail of anxiolytics and an opioid painkiller. "She was not aware of the plan," argued her defender, Mr. Thomas Vartanian, who was released. A few days after the events, this home help confided to a friend, speaking of Aïssa H.: “It was he who burned the car, it was he who pretended to be the DZ Mafia”.

Carla Moreau, one of the figures of the reality TV show Les Marseillais, a civil party just like her mother, spoke of her trauma and the fear of her own daughter. “She also expressed her disappointment at seeing her mother, who was supposed to protect her, having introduced people like the defendants into her entourage,” argued her defender, Mr. Samuel Chicha. Absent at the judgment, the court issued an arrest warrant against Aïssa H. Her defender, Mr. Frédéric Coffano, described the case as “family and legal vaudeville” and announced his intention to appeal.