After the discovery of 850 kilos of white powder on Réville beach on Sunday, new bags were found on beaches on Wednesday, bringing the total entered at 2.3 tonnes.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
More than two tonnes of cocaine wrapped in bags were failed last weekend and Wednesday on the Channel coast, the France-Presse (AFP) agency (AFP) learned from a source close to the file on Thursday. The retail market value of the prizes recovered is estimated at nearly 150 million euros.
Sunday morning, on Réville beach (Manche), several bags containing about 850 kilograms of cocaine had been discovered. On Wednesday, new bags failed on the coast, as announced by the prefecture of the Channel in a press release. This time, according to a source close to the file, confirming a Information from Ouest France , it is 1.5 tonnes of cocaine, which carries the total of these “historic” levels of 2.3 tonnes.
On the “thirty bags seized”, the “first tests” are “positive for cocaine”, had confirmed on Monday to journalists Pierre-Yves Marot, public prosecutor in Cherbourg.
Record entry of 1.9 tonnes in Le Havre
This is not the first time that cocaine has failed on the French coast. Thus, at the end of 2019, bundles containing a total of 1,600 kilograms of cocaine had failed on the beaches of an area going from Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) to Camaret-sur-Mer (Finistère) . More recently, at the end of May 2022, cocaine breads, for a total of around 21 kilograms, had been found on a beach in Berck (Pas-de-Calais).
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced Tuesday the seizure by the French authorities of 156.7 tonnes of drugs in 2022. For this volume: 27 tonnes of cocaine, an increase of 5 %, including 55 % came from the West Indies and Guyana.
“We must prevent this white tsunami from reaching our ribs,” alerted Gabriel Attal. The Minister of Public Accounts, on which customs depended, had congratulated himself on the “historic” cocaine seizure carried out on February 19 by his services on the port of Le Havre, with 1.9 tonnes of powder intercepted in a few days.