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Gangsters Kill to Control Paris Fruit Machine Racket

``Zitouni was the 44th French mobster to depart the scene abruptly in the past three years, and the 12th since the charismatic Francis le Belge, the long-time godfather of Marseille's legendary French Connection gang, was taken out in the basement bar of a betting club off the Champs Elysées last September.

``A detective from Paris police's organised crime squad said: "We're witnessing a mammoth settling of scores, a huge gangland upheaval, and it isn't over yet. Slowly but surely, the younger generation is working its way through the old established bosses. They're not being very discreet about it."

``At stake is an unromantic but highly lucrative new market. With drugs, pimping and extortion rackets becoming increasingly difficult to control in the face of mounting foreign competition and increased police activity, France's gangsters have discovered a low-risk, high-profit alternative: gaming machines.

``According to police, a single electronic or video-based fruit-machine - once its software has been doctored to pay out only between 40 and 50% of what gamblers feed in - can earn its owner a handsome £200 a day for an initial capital investment of just £2,500.

``Under French law, gaming machines that make cash payouts of any kind are permitted only in registered casinos, where the minimum return to gamblers is set at 85%. Mobsters have found little difficulty in persuading unscrupulous bar owners, in exchange for a reasonable slice of the profits, to install two or three doctored machines in a quiet back room.

``Police also point out that because the law has not yet caught up with the latest trend in organised crime, neither the criminal who supplies the machines nor the bar owners who use them are risking a great deal: often only a fine and a suspended prison sentence for the former, and a temporary closure of premises for a few weeks for the latter..."

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