1,440 kg of cannabis seized from a yole off Basse-Terre; six held
French customs coastguards and OCRTIS police stopped a yole about 25 km north-west of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, on 10 January 2016 and recovered about 60 bales of cannabis herb weighing 1,440 kg after the six-man crew threw them overboard. The six Saint Vincent nationals were jailed in provisional detention at Ducos prison in Martinique pending a judicial investigation.
🇫🇷 About 25 km north-west of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe · France
Customs coastguards and police of OCRTIS Caraïbe, France’s central office
against illicit drug trafficking, with its Guadeloupe detachment, intercepted a
yole, a small fast open boat, about 25 km north-west of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe,
on 10 January 2016.[1][2]The yole was about ten metres long and had two 250-horsepower engines.[2]The patrol boat Pitera, sent from Pointe-à-Pitre, made
the interception after the customs F406 aircraft relocated the target.[3]As
the boat was stopped, its six passengers threw about 60 bales of compacted
cannabis herb into the sea, and coastguards recovered them.[3]The bales
weighed 1,440 kg in total, according to the Martinique prefect’s communiqué.[4]
RCI put the consignment’s value at more than 2 million euros.[1]The 1,440 kg
were destroyed by burning.[3]The authorities called it one of the biggest
seizures of cannabis herb in several years.[1]The operation was carried out
with the police services of Saint Vincent and Sainte-Lucie and Britain’s
National Crime Agency.[1]
The six men on board, all Saint Vincent nationals, were placed in police custody
in Pointe-à-Pitre and then transferred to Fort-de-France.[1][2]At the end of
their custody they were brought before a judge and placed in provisional
detention at Ducos prison in Martinique.[1]A judicial investigation was
opened in Fort-de-France and entrusted to OCRTIS Caraïbe on the instructions of
the Fort-de-France public prosecutor.[4]Bondamanjak reported that the
investigation was assigned to the JIRS, the interregional specialised court.[3]The six accused were brought before the Fort-de-France tribunal de grande
instance.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
RCI gives the distance as '25 kg au nord-ouest de Basse-Terre', an evident typo for 25 km, which Bondamanjak and the prefect's communiqué confirm.
The 2019 RCI account of the Wildting trial says 62 bales, or 2.2 tonnes, were seized from the Wildting in the same interception, against about 60 bales and 1,440 kg in the January 2016 accounts.
Outremers 360 dated the interception 12 January 2016 and placed it near Dominica on a saintoise, while RCI, Bondamanjak, AFP and the prefect's communiqué give 10 January 2016 north-west of Basse-Terre.
The sources do not name the charges the six men face or report any verdict for this indictment.
Not added to guadeloupe-sainte-rose-435kg-ten-arrested-2016, as its quotation was not found in RCI: Anti-narcotics officers of the OCRTIS, France's central office against illicit drug trafficking, and the GIPN police intervention group stopped a convoy of four vehicles between Sainte-Rose and the approaches to Deshaies in Guadeloupe.
Not added to guadeloupe-sainte-rose-435kg-ten-arrested-2016, as its quotation was not found in RCI: At the end of January 2019, 21 people went on trial before the JIRS in Fort-de-France over the wider network known as the Wildting case.
This account says 50 bales weighing 144 kilos while also describing just over a tonne, differing from the about 60 bales and 1,440 kg used in the report.
Customs officers seized 40 kg of cannabis products from a Spanish UPS truck at the Fontaine toll on the A36 on 9 November 2026. Two Spain-based delivery drivers, aged 36 and 46, were detained after admitting they acted as “mules” for a load collected in Madrid.
Police seized about 100 kilos of drugs, mainly cannabis with some cocaine, from a nourrice stash flat supplying deal points in Vénissieux's Joliot-Curie sector. The reports give only a combined weight, so no cannabis-only quantity can be recorded.
Six people were taken into custody after searches across Corrèze and Saône-et-Loire linked to the Kannathera CBD chain; police seized 444.1 kg of cannabis, 190.2 kg of it resin. The Brive prosecutor's office said four suspects were placed under judicial supervision pending trial and two others were summoned to court.
On 3 November 2026 a Paris court ended a mother's social-housing lease after several kilos of cannabis and cash were found in her son's bedroom, put at 6.5 kg. The court accepted she paid rent, had no neighbour complaints and knew nothing of her son's activity.
