BORDEAUX, May 10 — Two adults accompanied by two minors posing as a family were arrested in France after police found 135 kilogrammes of cocaine in their camping van, prosecutors said yesterday.
Police stopped the RV coming from Spain overnight Monday to Tuesday at a highway toll around 80 kilometres north of the Spanish border, Bordeaux prosecutors said in a statement.
Onboard were a 54-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman, and two minors aged 15 and 17, who were travelling together “to give the image of a family trip”, prosecutors said.
The seizure confirms an “increasingly intensive use” by criminal networks of roads to import cocaine from southern Europe, an “adaptation” to measures taken to fight drug trafficking at the continent’s main northern ports, they added.
All four passengers, as well as the driver of another vehicle who was leading the convoy, were arrested and detained for questioning.
The three adults were indicted and placed in detention pending trial for importation, transport, detention and acquisition of narcotics, while the two minors were handed over to their parents, prosecutors said.
The individuals were from Croatia, Serbia, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Cocaine seizures has surged in France in recent months, with authorities seizing 53.5 tons overall last year, a 130 per cent increase compared to 2023, according to interior ministry data. — AFP