French troops intercepted a ship thought to be carrying tons of cocaine off Africa’s Atlantic coast on Thursday in a joint US-European operation, the prime minister’s office announced here.
Sources involved in the raid said here the ship was registered in Cambodia and could have been hauling as much as two tons of cocaine with a street value of 243-million euros ($230-million).
US, Spanish and Greek authorities assisted French naval units in carrying out the operation, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said in a written statement.
French ships were forced to fire warning shots at the 5 000-ton ship, followed by additional shots that left one crew member with leg injuries, officials said. The injured man was treated by a French naval physician.
“It is very rare in peacetime to have to fire shots at a ship in this kind of operation,” an aide to Raffarin said. “The prime minister himself gave the order to fire.”
The ship — which had 12 crew members aboard — was to be escorted by the French navy to the western French port of Brest, Raffarin said, explaining that authorities could not conduct a thorough search at sea.
Officials refused to immediately reveal the exact location where the search and seizure operation took place. The Greek news agency ANA reported from Athens that five tons of cocaine had been seized and several crew members taken into custody.
Two French ships, two surveillance planes and a 30-man commando unit totalling 250 to 300 troops participated in the raid, military officials said.
Drug and intelligence agencies in all four countries involved had carefully tracked the ship for several days before giving the go-ahead for the French operation, officials noted.
Greek police said five people were arrested on Thursday in the Athens area in connection with the incident. – AFP