The French navy has seized almost 10 tons of cocaine price greater than $600 million from a fishing vessel off the coast of West Africa, French authorities mentioned on Thursday.
The seizure by two navy ships on Monday adopted a tip-off by anti-drug and maritime intelligence authorities and British police, authorities in France’s northwestern Atlantic Maritime area mentioned.
The operation was a part of France’s Corymbe naval mission, which has been deployed within the Gulf of Guinea since 1990 to make sure safety in an space the place piracy is pretty widespread.
“In whole, 9.6 tons of cocaine with a market worth of almost 519 million euros ($609 million) was seized from a ship,” the Atlantic Maritime prefecture mentioned, including that the vessel was not registered in any nation.
Authorities launched photographs of the operation, exhibiting a naval ship and navy helicopter and officers unloading packages of the purported medication.
By the tip of August, the French navy had already seized almost six tons of cocaine off the coast of West Africa.
French authorities have intercepted 54.1 tons of medicine at sea because the starting of 2025, the navy mentioned in a social media submit on Thursday.
Cocaine has been discovered on fishing vessels across the globe in current months. Earlier this yr, the U.S. Coast Guard seized roughly 10,000 kilos of cocaine from a fishing boat within the Atlantic Ocean. That haul was price an estimated $74 million. Final December, police seized 2.3 tons of cocaine and arrested 13 folks in raids after the suspects’ fishing boat broke down off the coast of Australia.
