Cocaine seizures exploded in 2022: 27.7 tonnes were intercepted last year in France, a figure multiplied by five in ten years. “We must prevent this white tsunami from reaching our coasts,” warned Gabriel Attal during a press conference on March 1, alongside his colleagues from Justice and the Interior. The Minister of Public Accounts, on whom customs depend, does not think so well. In recent weeks, more than two tons of drugs, packed in hermetically sealed packages, have been discovered on various beaches in Cotentin and Manche, in Réville, Querqueville and Fontenay-sur-Mer. Sometimes attached to life jackets, the bales of cocaine drifted under the effect of the swell, before being stranded on the Normandy coast.
Initially led by the Jirs de Rennes, the investigation is now in the hands of the Paris prosecutor’s office and its national court responsible for the fight against organized crime (Junalco). Three police and gendarmerie services were jointly seized: the research section of Caen, the maritime research section of Houilles, and the anti-narcotics office (Ofast) of Nanterre.
Shipped by sea
“There are several hypotheses”, analysis for 20 minutes General François Daoust, former director of the judicial pole of the gendarmerie and of the IRCGN (Institute of criminal research of the national gendarmerie). The drugs may have been voluntarily thrown from a boat by the crew to avoid a control by the maritime gendarmerie or the English coast guard. “But it also happens that containers fall from a ship,” explains François Daoust. The investigators must first “get closer to the maritime prefecture in order to find out which buildings passed through there during this period, and if some of them declared the loss of a container during the passage through the Channel” .
In 2022, more than 75% of the cocaine seized by the authorities (16.3 tonnes) had been transported by sea from South America, often after transiting through the Antilles or Guyana. The boats carrying the containers, in which it is concealed in perfectly legal cargo, most often arrive at the port of Le Havre. “We seized there last year 10.4 tons of cocaine, against 3.9 in 2020”, indicates to 20 minutes Comptroller General Christian de Rocquigny, Deputy Head of Ofast (Anti-Narcotics Office). On February 19, customs officers at the port again got their hands on 1.9 tons of cocaine.
“Each cartel has its own recipe”
The countries producing this substance “are mainly Colombia, and to a lesser extent Peru and Bolivia. Brazil and Mexico are transit countries, ”says the policeman. It is possible that the traffickers left fingerprints or traces of DNA on the bales discovered on the Normandy beaches. On the other hand, there is little chance that they will be registered in France. “It will therefore be necessary to go through international cooperation” to question the files of other countries, considers General Daoust.
He adds that the analysis of the drug will also allow investigators to know with certainty its country of production. “Each cartel has its own recipe. They use chemicals that don’t have the same impurities. By analyzing it, it gives an idea of where it was made, or even grown. »
Investigators will also try to determine to which country the bales were sent. “If it is, the cocaine was not intended for France and was to arrive in another European port”, underlines the former boss of the judicial pole of the gendarmerie. In Europe, the cocaine shipped by the South American cartels lands mainly in the ports of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and Antwerp, in Belgium, which are plagued by the “Mocro-maffia” of Moroccan origin: 162 tons were seized there in 2022.
“Major Traffickers”
In France, police and customs officers deal with “big traffickers” who sometimes deal directly with producers. “But we don’t have, for the moment, the phenomenon [de mafia] observed in Belgium and the Netherlands”, observes Christian de Rocquigny. Only the explosion of seizures observed after 2021 remains worrying. “We do not know if this means that the phenomenon is increasing or that the services are better, a little of both, no doubt. What matters to us is dismantling criminal organizations. »
This is not the first time that cocaine has arrived in large quantities on the French coast. At the end of 2019, bales containing a total of 1.6 tonnes of white powder from Colombia had washed up, over several months, on the beaches of a large area ranging from Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) to Camaret (Finistère). The investigation had not made it possible to identify the boat which transported them.