The judicial police and customs are on all fronts to try to stem the "
white tsunami
" of cocaine trafficking, which is hitting France hard.
Fifteen people were thus arrested Thursday and Friday by the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast), members of a very elaborate network, where the white powder was cut to sugar.
Six arrests took place in France, eight in Spain thanks to a European arrest warrant, and one in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) using an international arrest warrant, learned
Le Figaro
from a judicial source, confirming the information of the
Parisian
.
Most of these individuals are very unfavorably known to the police, in particular for cases concerning drug trafficking, according to our information.
Read alsoCocaine trafficking: this “
white tsunami
” which hits France
This traffic, which a police source describes as "
very organized
", was discovered thanks to information from the American federal anti-drug agency, the DEA.
According to
Le Parisien
, a container passed through the port of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) then was seized in Thiais (Val-de-Marne) with 22 tonnes of sugar in 900 bags: inside, between 300 and 800 pounds of cocaine.
To be able to be sold, the drug then had to be separated from the sugar thanks to the know-how of Colombian chemists, a complex and unusual process in the industry.
Four of them were reportedly arrested in Spain.
Investigation open for 6 months
The arrests last week were made as part of a judicial investigation opened on December 9, 2021 on counts of "
organized gang fraud, organized gang money laundering, smuggling of prohibited goods, organized gang possession of tobacco and associations of criminals
”, confirms a judicial source.
This judicial information has been taken over since February 2022 by the National Court in charge of the fight against organized crime (Junalco) of the Paris prosecutor's office.
Read alsoThe “narcodivers”, these drug traffickers who worry the French secret services
In 2021, the French State, thanks to the work of Ofast and customs, seized no less than 23 tonnes of cocaine, twice as much as in 2020. If cutting cocaine with sugar is anything but obvious, requiring chemists to separate them, the process is not new.
In 2016, in Kenya, 100 kilos of cocaine were hidden in a container of sugar.
At the head of the network, a certain Jack Marrian, son of the British aristocrat Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor.
