Marseilles round-up

(First Edition)

PARIS - French police have rounded up 40 alleged members of the Marseilles criminal underworld, including a gang leader known as 'Francis the Belgian' whose pedigree goes back to the 1960s French Connection heroin-smuggling ring. It is the biggest sweep against the French underworld in a decade. In operations in Paris and Marseilles, the 40 gangsters were detained by a force of 100 police on Thursday and Friday. Their arrests stem from investigations into a series of gangland killings that left 14 people dead up and down the Riviera since September.