The French Navy seized more than four tons of cocaine from a ship in the South Pacific and also intercepted a cocaine-trafficking ship in the Caribbean Sea, the country’s armed forces minister said Thursday.
Catherine Vautrin wrote that in X 4.24 tons of cocaine He was intercepted in the Pacific and was carrying a vessel 678 kilos of cocaine He was captured in the Caribbean and handed over to Barbadian authorities.
The Pacific vessel, believed to be from Central America and bound for South Africa, was intercepted in French Polynesia, the island nation’s high commission said. statement.
Its cargo was destroyed at sea, far from Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone and marine protected area, officials told AFP.
Vautrin and the high commission images released from the operation on social media, showing an aerial view of the seizure and packages of suspected drugs on a boat. Vautrin praise the armed forces’ “vigilance and professionalism to thwart a globalized trafficking network.”
French High Commission in French Polynesia 
Prosecutors did not press charges in order not to burden the local court with a non-targeted drug trafficking case to French Polynesia.
The high commission said the ship and its crew were released in accordance with international law.
Last month, the navy almost five tons of cocaine were seizedbelieved to be en route to Australia from a fishing vessel near French Polynesia.
The United Nations has said that organized crime groups that traffic in cocaine and methamphetamine have expanded their presence in the Pacific Ocean in recent years.
Large quantities of drugs are transported from North and South America to markets in Australia and New Zealand, according to the United Nations.
French Polynesia is located in these sea lanes and is affected by the significant use of methamphetamine.
Its small population of 280,000, however, spares it from being the main target of large-scale drug trafficking.