Europeupdated 51m ago3 min read
Archive photo · 16 May 2015French Gendarmes Deploy Surveillance for 15 Tons of Cocaine Off Aquitaine Coast
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Fifteen tons of cocaine dumped offshore Aquitaine, potentially drifting toward Atlantic beaches. Gendarmerie deployed extensive surveillance along Gironde to Landes coast, monitoring beaches.
5 outlets told this the same way.
15 tons, wide patrols
French gendarmes deployed a wide surveillance operation along the Gironde and Landes coastlines after receiving information about a possible launch into the sea of 15 tons of cocaine off the Aquitaine coast. Actu.fr said the Gironde gendarmerie was alerted to the presence of a “15-ton cocaine cargo that would have been lost” off the Atlantic coast, while the report also said “no information confirms at this time that the bundles have arrived on our shores.” The Landes Gendarmerie Operational Center deployed a prevention system along the 80 km of the Landes littoral, between Biscarrosse and Tarnos, and it patrolled with motorcyclists and horseback gendarmes.
Helicopters patrolled the coastline from Soulac-sur-Mer, at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, to Moliets-et-Maa, and the gendarmerie also organized two patrols each day at low tide and ebb tide to intercept any bundles before beachgoers could reach them. The alert zone covered heavily surfed stretches including Lacanau, Carcans, Le Porge, Biscarrosse, Mimizan, and Vieux-Boucau, and it extended south to Tarnos, including Seignosse, Hossegor, and Capbreton.
Mayors alarmed, checks expand
The announcement triggered a large presence on the beaches, and Patrice Marchand, the mayor of Carcans, said “Dozens of motorcycles and quads are driving up onto the dunes,” while he also reported finding a quad burned and abandoned motorcycles and quads. Xavier Labrouche, head of the Vieux-Boucau municipal police station, said the searches had produced a “rather strange nocturnal turnout for the season,” and he explained that authorities were targeting small objects “about one kilogram.” The gendarmerie checked about ten passers-by in Lacanau, and the Landes gendarmerie said it was stopping the few curious people who came to inspect the sand in search of the drug.
The Landes gendarmerie said it would issue an order banning access to the beaches “if the slightest trace of cocaine is discovered,” and it added that if the information proved false, it would have created more public disorder than anything else. The gendarmerie also increased checks on runners and suspicious walkers, and the patrols described the situation as “a bit like an Easter egg hunt.”
No packages yet, next steps
For now, the search for cocaine packages had been unsuccessful, and Actu.fr said that “no bale or trafficker has been spotted” while the operational center continued stopping people who tried to inspect the sand. The Landes gendarmerie told ICI that Tuesday night there was still no fardo found, and authorities said they did not have elements to confirm a launch. The French gendarmerie said it was monitoring the coastline between Soulac-sur-Mer and Moliets-et-Maa, and it continued to patrol with aerial and ground assets as the alert zone remained in place.
Actu.fr said investigators had not established where the shipment originated, which vessel transported it, or why the cargo may have been abandoned at sea, and it said possible explanations included mechanical problems or an emergency dumping to avoid interception. France 3 Régions added that penalties can reach up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 7.5 million euros for picking up and keeping a bundle of cocaine, and it also said authorities warned people not to touch any packages and to call 17 or 112.