Dunkirk customs officials intercepted 1.1 tonnes of cocaine last Friday.
The drugs were concealed on board a cargo ship bound for Belgium.
The goods were seized and the crew handed over to OFAST police officers.
Last Friday, it was not a few kilos of cocaine that were recovered on a beach but indeed a ton in the holds of a cargo ship.
The Customs operation took place off Dunkirk, in the North, we learned this Wednesday from the maritime prefecture.
In the sights of the authorities, a merchant ship called "Trudy", flying the Liberian flag, arriving from Brazil.
The control was carried out on the initiative of the customs operational center of Nantes in collaboration with the maritime prefectures of the Atlantic and the Channel North Sea.
On its route, the freighter had made a stopover in Spain and was to unload a cargo of chalk at the port of Antwerp, Belgium.
Drugs discovered after several hours of searching
It was the customs officers of the Brigade-Garde-Côtes de Dunkirk, in French waters, the ship, who intercepted the ship to divert it to the port of Dunkirk in order to carry out checks.
The methodical search of the “Trudy” still took several hours but it paid off.
It is in particular the intervention of a dog specialized in the detection of narcotics which allowed the discovery of the drug.
“Hidden behind a partition, 40 bags containing compact breads containing a white powder.
Anti-narcotics detection tests confirmed the presence of cocaine, ”details a press release from the Ministry of the Economy and Finance.
The total weight of the goods was 1.1 tonnes, or more than 50 million euros for retail resale on the illicit market.
An investigation was opened by the anti-narcotics office (OFAST).
The merchandise and the ship's crew were handed over to investigators.
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