FRANCE – Over 750kg (1,654lb) of cocaine – most of it 83-percent pure – has washed up in plastic packages along the French Atlantic coast this month.
The drugs were found on beaches from the Landes, in the far south, to the Loire estuary west of Nantes. New packages continue to appear daily, closing several beaches.
Prosecutors in Brittany were collecting the seized bundles. They do not yet know where the drugs came from.
The drug parcels’ street value so far was estimated to be as much as €60m (£51.5m; $66m).
Transporting drugs such as cocaine can land an individual with a 10-year jail term in France.
Police also warned that the purity of the cocaine made it a health risk to anyone coming into contact with it.
The prosecutors are liaising with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the European anti-narcotics police in their investigation.(BBC)