France customs seize 800kg of cocaine from truck

PARIS: French customs have seized more than 800 kilos of cocaine from a truck at a highway rest area in southeast France, a source close to the case said on Sunday.

Officers seized the 826 kilogrammes of drugs on Saturday just off the autoroute leading to the city of Lyon and arrested the truck´s Polish driver, the source said. The intercepted cargo is estimated to be worth around 24 million euros ($26 million), based on an average wholesale price of 30,000 euros (more than $32,000) per kilo. A gramme is usually sold for around 58 euros ($63).

In total, French customs seized 53.5 tonnes of cocaine last year, more than double the quantity for the previous year. Cocaine use has nearly doubled in France, according to one study. Some 1.1 million people used cocaine at least once in 2023, the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) said in a report in January.