More than 520 kg of cocaine were seized Tuesday by the Dutch authorities in the port of Rotterdam aboard the “
Trudy
”, a cargo ship in which more than a ton of drugs had already been discovered in Dunkirk.
The 529 kg, whose resale value is estimated at around 40 million euros, were hidden in the hold, divided into 29 packages which themselves contained smaller packages of cocaine, detailed Friday, October 29 the public prosecutor Dutch.
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Initially loaded in Brazil with a cargo of chalk bound for Antwerp (Belgium) after a stopover in Spain, the boat had been diverted to the port of Dunkirk and then inspected, with among others the support of sea and land customs officers from the management of Dunkirk, customs and navy aircraft, as well as the maritime gendarmerie.
On October 1, more than 1.1 tonnes of cocaine was then discovered in its holds, ie "
the largest
" seizure "
carried out in French territorial waters in France since 2018
", rejoiced Olivier Dussopt, Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts.
A commando had entered the ship
Among the twenty members of the initial crew, nineteen had been indicted in the framework of this first investigation and fifteen of them imprisoned. But while he had been boarded since October 1 in Dunkirk, a commando team had sequestered the relief crew during the night of October 10 to 11. "
The probable goal was to recover drugs and money
", but the people had "
left at 5:00 am empty-handed
", reported a police source. The members of the commando "
would have carried out a search of the ship accompanied by the captain but a priori without taking anything in particular
", explained the Dunkirk prosecutor's office.
The National Jurisdiction against Organized Crime (Junalco), based in Paris, then took up the open flagrance investigation for "
kidnapping and forcible confinement in an organized gang, thefts in an organized gang, and criminal conspiracy
", and the had confided to Ofast, the anti-narcotics office.
The boat then resumed sea, bound for Antwerp and then Rotterdam, where the last seizure took place.
Junalco's investigations are continuing, including the seizure in the Dutch port.
