More than 40kg of cocaine discovered in banana shipments to French supermarkets

13 September 2024 , 15:44

596     0

More than 40kg of cocaine discovered in banana shipments to French supermarkets

Police seek to identify intended recipient after drugs found under pallets at four Grand Frais stores

Dozens of kilograms of cocaine have been found in banana deliveries to four of a French supermarket chain’s stores, with police unsure who the intended recipient was.

Staff at Grand Frais branches in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France were astonished to find between 40kg (88lb) and 50kg of drugs hidden under pallets of bananas and were anxious to reassure customers that the cocaine had not come into contact with the fruit. 

Now detectives are attempting to solve the mystery of how the drugs, believed to have originated in Colombia, came to be in the pallets and – more importantly – for whom they were destined.

Olivier Caracotch, the public prosecutor for Dijon, in Burgundy, said 10kg of cocaine had been found in the fruit delivery to the Grand Frais store in Beaune. Between 10kg and 12kg were found in similar deliveries to three other stores.

A spokesperson for Grand Frais said: “We are working closely with police to ensure that the investigation runs smoothly and that our staff and customers are safe.” The supermarket refused to give further information.

Henry Morgan