French police have arrested Ameur Mansouri, a 49-year-old Franco-Moroccan drug trafficker considered one of the key figures behind the cannabis trade linking Morocco, Spain, and France.
His capture in Paris on Thursday evening brings an end to more than a decade on the run.
Mansouri, who had been wanted since 2012, was apprehended by the elite BRI police unit in the 15th arrondissement of Paris after being trapped in a traffic jam.
According to investigators, he offered no resistance during the arrest, which took place swiftly and without incident.
Originally from the Paris region, Mansouri is believed to have maintained close ties with suppliers in northern Morocco — particularly in the coastal areas of Al Hoceima and Nador. These ports have long served as major hubs for cannabis resin exports to Europe.
Investigators from France’s anti-narcotics office (Ofast) suspect that Mansouri oversaw a sophisticated trans-Mediterranean network.
The operation allegedly relied on transporters based in Andalusia and a network of shell companies in Spain and Luxembourg to launder profits from the lucrative drug trade.
The arrest was carried out on Thursday, October 2, around 8 p.m., after days of surveillance by the BRI in Versailles. Police sources said officers did not engineer the traffic jam but instead used the natural congestion to discreetly corner Mansouri’s vehicle.
Mansouri had been classified as a “top national target” by Ofast and was wanted under two international arrest warrants. In 2017, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for drug trafficking, followed by another 15-year sentence in 2023 for organized crime, money laundering, and fraud. Despite these convictions, he had managed to evade capture for years, frequently moving between Morocco and Spain to continue directing parts of his network remotely.
According to a source close to the investigation, “Mansouri was a bridge between the old-generation traffickers of the 1990s and the new actors of transnational organized crime.”
His arrest marks a major blow to the Moroccan Rif’s trafficking networks, which have supplied Europe’s cannabis market for decades. Security experts believe the operation could temporarily disrupt the logistical and financial structures of Franco-Moroccan criminal organizations.
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