Over two tonnes of cocaine found in Normandy; France faces record rise in drug seizures

Two sealed bags containing a total of 2.3 tonnes of cocaine washed up on the northern French coast in the past week, said a report by the news agency AFP, on Thursday (March 2) citing a source with knowledge of the find. The total street value of the drugs found is reportedly close to $160 million. The report was published a day after French authorities said they seized 27 tonnes of cocaine in 2022, a five-time increase over the past decade.

In what is reported to be two separate finds of watertight packages, one on Sunday where multiple bags containing a total of 850 kg worth of cocaine was found on the Reville beach near the northern end of Normandy and the other on Wednesday when six more bags of the drugs turned up at the nearby Vicq-sur-Mer, reported AFP.

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However, this is not the first time a major cocaine shipment washed up on the French coast, in 2019 at least 1.6 tonnes of the illicit drug was found all around the French Atlantic coast, while the recent drugs found on Wednesday and Sunday were on the Normandy English Channel coast. Sources familiar with the investigation told AFP that they remain uncertain about where this cocaine came from.

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The report also said how the officials are unsure about if traffickers threw it overboard deliberately to evade arrest or whether the consignment fell from their boat due to the heavy weather. Meanwhile, the local maritime authorities are on “special watch” and have been scanning the area using an aircraft but no more drugs were found, as of Thursday afternoon, reported AFP.

This comes as European countries havefaced a surge in the trafficking and use of the illicit drug, as per reports, most cocaine now enters Europe through northern ports like the Netherlands city of Rotterdam, Antwerp in Belgium, the German city of Hamburg and France’s Le Havre. Reportedly, the port city of Le Havre has become the main entry point for cocaine into France.

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On Wednesday, the French government said that they seized 27 tonnes of cocaine in 2022 which, as per interior ministry figures, is up five per cent from last year compared with 2021. Overall, the French authorities seized 157 tonnes of illegal drugs in 2022.

At least more than half of this cocaine comes from the West Indies and France’s South American region of Guiana, said the interior ministry. In fact, just last month, authorities seized 1.9 tonnes of the illicit substance, as per the ministry of public accounts which also oversees customs enforcement.

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