It's a nice catch for the customs officers and the start of a long investigation for the police.
A 34-year-old man was indicted on Monday in Paris for trafficking and importing narcotics before being imprisoned in the Nanterre remand center (Hauts-de-Seine).
This trafficker was surprised on Friday on the A 22 motorway in the North with 43 kilos of cocaine in his car.
It was in the evening that the officials stopped his vehicle during an ordinary check before discovering the pot-aux-roses.
The young man was taken into custody in the premises of the judicial police of Versailles, responsible for carrying out further investigations.
The driver is from the city of Noé in Chanteloup-les-Vignes (Yvelines).
"He does not have the profile of a trafficker," said a source close to the case.
He has some antecedents which are more of the order of public highway delinquency ”.
A value of around 3 million euros
During the four days of interrogation, the one who looks like a conveyor did not wish to speak.
Investigators from the Versailles DRPJ narcotics squad will try to understand who his employers are.
If La Noé is one of the biggest traffic hubs in the Yvelines, this quantity of drugs seems too large for the local market.
"It is likely that it is intended to supply other points of deal in Ile-de-France or in the provinces", adds a source.
Cocaine is traded for around 70 euros per gram in the Paris region.
The amount seized is worth around three million euros at the purchase price.
In Rotterdam, a kilo of cocaine is traded for around 10,000 euros and in Bogotá in Colombia for around 1,500 euros.
This seizure therefore represents a net loss of around 500,000 euros for the traffickers.