Cocaine trafficking by air between Guyana and mainland France represents between 15 and 20% of entries into the territory.
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After a month of surveillance of a Guyanese suspect suspected of cocaine trafficking, the narcotics brigade of the Paris judicial police arrested a passenger on a Cayenne-Paris flight and three people who were waiting for him on January 12 at the Orly airport, learned franceinfo Thursday January 20 from a source familiar with the matter.
The passenger was carrying 22 kilos of cocaine in his suitcase, according to a source close to the investigation. A search carried out at the home of another suspect also made it possible to discover 30,000 euros in counterfeit notes, which were to be used, according to the investigations, to pay for the drugs from Guyana.
As part of a judicial investigation by a judge from Créteil (Val-de-Marne), the passenger and three other people were indicted at the end of their police custody and placed in pre-trial detention on January 16. .
The police have been fighting for several years now against the importation of cocaine via Cayenne/Paris flights. The mules, often numerous on these flights, ingest the drug or hide it in their luggage to import larger quantities, as was the case in this case. Cocaine trafficking by air between Guyana and mainland France represents between 15 and 20% of entries into the territory.
According to a Senate report on this phenomenon, working on behalf of micro-networks being structured, couriers or “mules” introduce the drug into their bodies in the form of eggs (30% of cases) or conceal them close to the body or in their luggage. A dozen smugglers take each flight, each carrying an average of 1.9 kilograms of cocaine, according to this report.