Dominique Venturi

Dominique Venturi (born June 24, 1923 in Marseille , France ; † April 6, 2008 ibid), nicknamed Nick by his confidants, was one of the last great mafia bosses in the Corsican milieu in Marseille. The US drug authorities once called him "the main French supplier of heroin to the US ".

biography

Venturi was born in the old Le Panier district of Marseille , which lies above the old port and at that time was mainly inhabited by Corsicans .

During the Second World War he was one of the socialist combat forces of the lawyer Gaston Defferre . These consisted of about 300 men and were led by the Guérini brothers . Even after the war, many of its members, including Venturi, remained under the command of the Guérinis. They were initially active in cigarette smuggling and later controlled drug traffic between Turkey and the USA through the heroin laboratories located in Marseille .

For a long time, Venturi had excellent connections with the Guérini brothers. When they got into trouble against their opponent Marcel Francisci , Venturi saw his chance and also sawed on their branch. Francisci, who was the boss of the French Connection from the early 1960s , supplied Venturi with drugs.

Venturi was also friends for decades with Gaston Defferre, the longtime Lord Mayor of Marseille (1953-1986), whom he knew from his time with the socialist combat troops during World War II. The friendship came to an abrupt end in the early 1980s. At that time his son Jacques was just imprisoned and Dominique wanted to get his release by all means. In order to emphasize his demand, he threatened explosive revelations. Gaston Deferre, then Interior Minister under Mitterrand (1981-1984), was not impressed by this and terminated the friendship Venturi, who was sentenced to several years imprisonment soon after (on July 7, 1982) for forgery and corruption.

Nick Venturi died on April 6, 2008 at the age of 84 in his Marseille domicile on Avenue du Prado . He was one of the few Marseille mafia godfathers who died of natural causes rather than being assassinated. Around 300 people were present at his funeral, including many politicians (both socialist and right-wing) and a few people from the demimondial milieu .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred W. McCoy: The politics of heroin in Southeast Asia , chapter "After the Fall" ( Memento of February 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Jonathan Marshall: The Lebanese Connection: Corruption, Civil War, and the International Drug Traffic. Stanford University, Stanford 2012, ISBN 978-0-8047-8131-2 , p. 46.

Web links

• Article in La Provence newspaper on the death of Dominique Venturi (French)