They are France 's most dangerous drug kingpins, according to the country's justice minister — prison inmates so wealthy and powerful that even behind bars, they can continue to order assassinations, run narco-trafficking operations and launder money.
Flexing his powers as minister in charge of the French penal system, Gérald Darmanin's solution to the problem is contentious. He is moving 100 inmates — men he describes as “France’s biggest criminals” — into an austere maximum security penitentiary in the country's north that critics say has echoes of tough U.S. prisons.
