On December 30, the gendarmes of the Rouen research section pulled off a nice feat to end their year 2024 by getting their hands on a shipment of more than two tons of cocaine at the port of Le Havre. Between the catches made by the gendarmerie and those of customs, more than eleven tonnes of this drug were seized last year within the confines of this port.
Coming across these two tonnes of coke was in no way due to chance, but the result of intense “analysis and cross-checking”, explains to 20 Minutes a source close to the case. The authorities already had in their sights the ship arriving from Pointe-à-Pitre on which the cargo was located before being unloaded in Le Havre. “What we have not yet seen in France is the “clone container” technique used by the traffickers in this case,” continues this source.
Main gateway to cocaine in France
“This is a container with identical marking to a container already referenced in the cargo of a ship to be unloaded,” explains the Havre prosecutor's office. According to the national gendarmerie, “this operating method allows, according to the principle of substitution, to remove the “replaced” container from the port area without arousing suspicion”. For our source, the technique most used until now by traffickers was the so-called “rip off”. It consists of breaking a container of goods, bananas for example, to introduce drugs before affixing a new seal.
Together, the political, judicial and law enforcement authorities agree that the port of Le Havre is the main gateway for cocaine into France. “This is nothing new and this is easily explained by the size of this port, the incessant activity that reigns there and the countless number of containers that pass through it,” assures our source close to the matter.
Impossible to quantify what passes between the meshes
Indeed, the large seaport of Le Havre processes three million containers per year for a tonnage which exceeds 81 million tonnes in 2023. So, even if drug seizures are regular, a seizure of two tonnes in one shot remains exceptional. “Last March, Customs undoubtedly made the record with a seizure of almost three tonnes,” recalls our source.
Read our file on the theme of narcotics
And if the quantities of drugs intercepted are increasingly significant, there are several reasons: “Certainly our investigation techniques are better established and more effective, but we must recognize that the scale of trafficking is increasing,” explains- your. A scale that cannot be quantified: “We know what we intercept but it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine what passes through the cracks,” our source admitted, adding that “the traffickers are more and more inventive” and that they “adapt quickly”.
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