Overview

• Customs officers from Tours stopped the truck on 18 September at the A10 Saint-Arnoult toll after finance intelligence about a convoy traveling from Portugal toward the Netherlands.
• A search uncovered 1,264 bricks of cocaine weighing about 1.45 tonnes, with the drugs and driver transferred to OFAST in Nanterre for weighing and analysis.
• The national organized-crime jurisdiction, JUNALCO, is leading the case and a judicial investigation has been opened.
• The 53-year-old Dutch driver was presented to an investigating judge on 22 September, and prosecutors have requested pretrial detention.
• The seizure fits a broader surge in cocaine trafficking, with France recording a first-half 2025 record of 37.5 tonnes seized, and this load’s value estimated near €36 million.