Grenoble underground economy

When people are talking about Grenoble they're thinking of the mountains, winter sports History and one of France greenest universitary campus .

But this city has another more scary face ; it is in fact one of the most dangerous cities in france and has always been . Different mob families hve ran this city over the years . After World War two the Corsicans had a business of ransoms and gamble that had been taken over by the italian during the seventies , in the eighties The Maldera family (Italian gypsies ) imposed its domination in the Abbaye borough and first imported the drug trafic in this city .

Nowadays we have to face a major drug traffiking problem in this city , according to the plolice more or less ten tons of Hash are being sold in this city every year for a business worth over 25 million euros , run by different gangs associated to different borough such as la Luire in Echirolles or Mistral near the eaux claires borough. As you might have noticed grenoble is a medium sized city sourrounded by the mountains so it can not expand that much and the « dangerous » borough are very close to the city center. Now if we consider drug traffiking as an economical activiy and the different gangs as rival companies we have to admit that grenoble is a closed market where the concurrence is harsh and the potential gains are enormous a phenomenon that has been amplified by the expansion of cocaine as a matter of fact a gram of hash is worth more or less 5 euros whereas a gram of coke is worth 50 euros .

With so much money on a small market with many concurrents we can expect what we would call hostile bid , unfair competition and a will to gain leadership over this market .

The problem is when two companies are experiencing certain issues they have authoritites and juges to settle problems down , but with this economy only violence can solve these issues with resulted is such shooting as those of summer 2007 and a general climate of violence in the city .

Another interessing fact about this under groung economy is how money laundering plyed an important role in the developpement of the city , if tou consider the Alma Bourough more than fifty pro cent of the shops and restaurants of this borough have been set up by drug money creating a link between legal economy and underground economy.

Jean Toussaint