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Video length: 6 min
Drug trafficking: customs officers track ships on the open sea
Drug trafficking: customs officers track ships on the open sea
(France 2)
Large quantities of cocaine arrive in Europe by sea. To intercept these cargo ships, customs officers are responsible for monitoring the ships at sea, and search them when they consider them suspicious. But it is difficult to inspect everything.
To intercept the tons of cocaine arriving by sea to Europe, customs officers fly over the waters. Boats whose AIS, the geolocation system, is turned off arouse their suspicions. In case of doubt, they transmit the information collected to the customs flagship, SEDRE. That day, she patrolled the waiting area of the port of La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime). There, cargo ships wait before loading or unloading.
Very long ships to inspect
A ship intrigues customs officers: it arrives from Rotterdam (Netherlands), a drug hub. Eight of them were sent on board. The Vietnamese crew is legally obliged to accept and facilitate the inspection. This “horizontal building” takes a long time to inspect. The attitude of sailors is also scrutinized. It would take 24 hours to search everything, but it is impossible to interrupt economic activity for that long without serious doubts. Dogs are often used.
