A record seizure of ecstasy was made on the A7 motorway. 963 kilos of ecstasy tablets were discovered in a van during a check carried out by Lyon customs officers on Thursday October 31, at the Reventin-Vaugris tollbooth (Isère), as reported
The Dauphiné. This quantity could constitute the largest seizure of ecstasy ever recorded in France.
The synthetic drug, hidden in the vehicle coming from the North of France and heading to the South, would have an estimated value of between 15 and 20 million euros. The driver of the van, a Spanish national, was immediately placed in customs detention. He was presented to an investigating judge on Monday for indictment. Initial investigations indicate that the drug comes from Belgium or the Netherlands, countries recognized as the leading producers of ecstasy, with criminal networks with almost industrial production power.
542 kg of ecstasy pills seized last May
This seizure comes only six months after another major operation carried out on May 1 by the gendarmes of the Grenoble Research Section. In this case, after several months of investigation and after surveillance of a vehicle rented in Tignieu-Jameyzieu (Isère), the gendarmes intercepted a large BMW and a Volkswagen Golf carrying more than a million pills of ecstasy, a total of 542 kg, while they were crossing Isère and Drôme. The value of this seizure was then estimated at 10 million euros, representing two thirds of the total ecstasy seized in France in 2022, each pill selling for around ten euros per unit, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
The volume of ecstasy seizures in France has increased tenfold in ten years, in a context where the country occupies a strategic position for international trafficking. France is in fact a route for traffickers who supply the United Kingdom, Spain and the Maghreb in particular, where demand for ecstasy is rising sharply.
This phenomenon of growing consumption is also true in France, where around 400,000 French people aged 11 to 75 have used ecstasy at least once in 2022, and nearly 2 million have tried it at least once in their life, according to data from the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).
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