Drug Violence in Switzerland: A Growing Concern

Thirty people were arrested in a raid in Siders, many of the arrested are still teenagers. The brutality with which the gang operated has particularly concerned the authorities.

Patrick Tissières has already seen a lot. The head of the Narcotics of the Wallis cantonal police has been dealing with drug trafficking for twenty years. The Operation Cité Aldrin is unprecedented for him. It is the code name for the investigation by the Valais cantonal police in a district of Siders, which is called.

Eighty officers observed a far-reaching drug network for eighteen months – and arrested over 30 suspects in several raids, of which 60 percent were foreigners. For three years, the gang from Cité Aldrin had sold 500 kilograms of hashish and 2 kilos of cocaine in estimated value of over CHF four million in the whole of western Switzerland.

Minors Were Physically Punished

Show research: For a few hundred francs, the gang adopted young people and trained them. These are people who raise the alarm when police officers or competing gangs come. Other minors were used as sellers or transporters.

The strictly hierarchically organized gang specifically recruited teenagers to do the “dirty work,” as a judiciary insider expresses it from the Valais. Minors risk less punishments under juvenile justice. The recruitment took place through acquaintances in the neighborhood. There are occasional recruits through social media.

Dealing in the aisle was characterized by brutality. Patrick Tissières says: “The minors were put under pressure to make more and more profit. Their superiors punished them physically and they themselves used violence against their colleagues.”

In the Quarter There is a Climate of Uncertainty

What is happening here? Why can a brutal drug gang with underage members form in a small place like Siders with its 18,000 inhabitants? Does Switzerland get into fear and horror in the whirlpool of drug power, which France, Belgium and Holland is terrified and demands dozens of deaths every year?

The Valais city is rarely in the headlines. Money and upswing can be found above crans-montana. There is hardly anything to be felt in Siders – and nothing in the Cité Aldrin. Two colossal apartment blocks dominate the district. We meet Nicole in a parking lot, which is actually called differently. The independent nurse has been driving twice a day for ten years to visit a patient. “I would never come at night. And I always close my car because there are medication,” she says before inviting us to her patient.

“Jacques*, you have a visit,” calls Nicole when she opens the door. As she prepares the medication, Jacques sets up on his bed. The man, paralyzed, is difficult to move without help. In the past, his electric wheelchair was stolen, which the police found 10 kilometers away from the settlement. Recently, people broke into his apartment at night to steal money and food from the fridge. “The castle will be exchanged tomorrow,” explains Nicole. “In the meantime, we hide all foods such as yogurt, fruit juice, coffee and cigarettes.” Jacques says: “The main thing is that a roof over his head.”

Talks with other neighborhood residents confirm the picture: a climate of uncertainty poisoned life in the district. “The people who have the choice do not remain,” says the nurse.

The federal security authorities are worried. Yanis Callandret is head of the Federal Criminal Police, responsible for organized crime and violations of the Narcotics Act. He told RTS to Western Switzerland that Switzerland has so far been spared certain developments. Now she has to deal with groups that are “ready for everything” to commit herself in drug trafficking. All regions of Switzerland are affected.

On request, the FedPol announces that certain local gangs already have connections to organized crime abroad. Drug gangs from France had settled directly in Switzerland – and would not only operate in western Switzerland, but also to Zurich. There are also connections to criminal organizations in Holland and Belgium. More and more players are pushing into the Switzerland drug market, where cocaine has long since conquered all social classes. Alain Ribaux, the Neuchâtel Security Director and Co-President of the conference of the cantonal judicial and police directors, says: “We register the first signs that the situation in drug trafficking in Switzerland becomes more aggressive.”

The gang in Siders operated without contact with foreign gangs, but their organization was based on role models from abroad and is therefore not an isolated case in Switzerland, as the FedPol confirms. French experts share the assessment. Stéphane Quéré, French criminologist and specialist for organized crime, recognizes in the gang of the Cité Aldrin “the same structure as in a gang in the French Banlieus”.

In Marseille, 14-Year-Olds Kill

These are bad news. Europe is faced with a wave of violence related to international drug trafficking. Record quantities of cheap cocaine with high purity from Latin America are smuggled onto the continent – corruption and murder subsequently destabilize entire regions. Holland, Belgium – and France are particularly affected. In 2024, 110 people died in the western neighboring country in connection with drug trafficking, 341 suffered injuries. Of the 176 people who were imprisoned for murder or attempted murder, a quarter were under 20 years old. 16 were minors. The worst is the situation in Marseille where in the notorious northern quarters there are struggling for supremacy in cocaine and cannabis trade. The killing of a taxi driver by a 14-year-old caused a sensation.

However, according to expert Quéré, not only big cities such as Marseille are affected by the organized youth gangs in France, “they are also active in smaller cities or in the country”.

Like now in Siders.

The Cité Aldrin offers the ideal breeding ground for criminal youth gangs. Stéphanie Loup is a criminologist and works in the advisory company Outsiders, which deals with the management of criminal risks. She says poverty alone does not lead to crime, but rather the interaction of several factors. Among them is a feeling of injustice in the face of social inequality. “In other words, the greater the differences between poor and rich, the more fertile the breeding ground for crime.” Between 2022 and 2023, the violation of the Narcotics Act increased by 23 percent in the entire canton of Valais.

Switzerland likes to refer to its social mix – and the absence of poor quarters such as the French Banlieus. However, there have been signs that similar structures form in certain regions as in the French Cités.

Four years ago there was a gang war between a gang from La Chaux-de-Fonds and a Biel group with the name 2CZ. The young people staged themselves with rap video clips in which they showed weapons, drugs and money-like their role models in France. There were assault, brutal kidnapping – and a killing: In September 2021, members of the Biel gang stood out in Lausanne a 20-year-old man.

So far, no drug trafficking activities that resemble those in Siders are known in the area of these gangs. But drug violence has arrived in Switzerland. The FedPol says: “A development towards an even more violent crime cannot be ruled out.”

* Name of the editors known