French customs have announced they found 7.4 tonnes of cannabis onboard a speedboat on Saturday.
The drugs were seized during a search operation in the Mediterranean Sea, around a hundred kilometres from the Algerian coast. The French Navy also took part in the operation.
Three smugglers with Turkish passports were arrested. They were on board the boat when the drugs were found. The suspects, their boat and the drugs were escorted to Toulon port in the South of France and remanded in custody on Saturday.
A customs surveillance aircraft spotted the suspect's vessel on Thursday morning. The small dark blue boat was difficult to detect, but was seen crossing into international waters. The aircraft used its cameras to follow the boat at a high altitude, where the smugglers couldn’t see it. Two Navy and customs fast-moving zodiac patrol boats were dispatched to the scene. The suspect’s boat was searched by a team of 12 Marines and eight customs officers that afternoon.
The smugglers admitted to transporting drugs on their boat, which was a former racing boat.
The Brussels Times
