The enormous discovery was made on December 30. Investigators had found more than two tons of cocaine hidden in a container at the port of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), announced the Paris prosecutor's office. Since then, the investigation has continued and this Friday, a 22-year-old dockworker and a 41-year-old truck driver were indicted.
They are accused of importing narcotics as part of an organized gang, criminal conspiracy and smuggling goods dangerous to public health, said the Paris public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, in her press release. These offenses are punishable by up to 30 years of criminal imprisonment and the cocaine seized has an estimated retail value of more than 130 million euros, the press release added.
The “clone container” technique
The Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, welcomed on 'intensifies day by day'. It was information collected and cross-checks carried out by the Rouen research section which made it possible to initiate the investigation, indicated Colonel Joël Kerleau, who heads it.
Begun under the authority of the Le Havre public prosecutor's office and then, as soon as the arrests were made, of Junalco (National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime), the investigations are continuing in particular to identify “all the co-perpetrators and accomplices”. They have already made it possible to “highlight the particular operating mode used”, with “the deposit of a “clone container” in the unloading zone […] having identical marking to a container already referenced in the cargo of a ship to be unloaded,” indicates the Paris prosecutor's office.
“This clone container had previously been placed at the port, so as to be able to make a substitution to avoid going through the scanner” of the container containing the drugs, explained Colonel Kerleau. “This is the first time that this way of operating has been used to our knowledge in the port of Le Havre,” he said, although the technique is already used in other foreign ports.
