French Navy seizes cocaine shipments in Polynesia, Caribbean

PARIS, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The French Navy seized more than 4 tonnes of cocaine in French Polynesia and intercepted another boat carrying the drug in the Caribbean, France’s armed forces minister said on Thursday, as the U.S. and other countries step up their fight against drug trafficking.

Local officials in French Polynesia said the seizure occurred on Monday when a Navy vessel, acting on intelligence from French and New Zealand customs, stopped a boat flagged for suspicion. The Navy found 174 packages of cocaine on board, officials said in a statement.

A prior drug interception occurred in French Polynesia on January 16, when nearly 5 tonnes of cocaine were seized, authorities from the Pacific nation said.

The drugs were not destined for Polynesia and were subsequently destroyed, while the crew and vessel were permitted to continue traveling under international law.

Separately, Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said in a statement on X that around 678 kg of cocaine had been recovered from a vessel in the Caribbean, with the boat handed over to the Barbadian authorities.

The French Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction published a report in December saying that cocaine had overtaken cannabis as the leading illegal drug in France. 

Gang-related drug crime is on the rise in France, and during a visit to Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot launched a multi-pronged plan to fight an explosion of drug trafficking in Latin America, the Caribbean and, increasingly, in Europe.

Paris has been pushing for a European Union sanctions regime to tackle the issue.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in Brussels and Gianluca Lo Nostro in Paris; editing by John Irish and Toby Chopra)