Martinique: 10 jailed up to 11 years for importing drugs from Saint Lucia
The Fort-de-France JIRS correctional court convicted ten people in March 2024 of importing cocaine, crack and cannabis from Saint Lucia to Martinique by sea. It sentenced them to prison terms of two to eleven years and kept all but one, a fugitive, in detention.
Ten people, nine of them Martiniquais and one a national of Saint Lucia, were
convicted in March 2024 of importing cocaine, crack and cannabis from Saint
Lucia to Martinique by sea.[1]The Fort-de-France correctional court’s
interregional specialist section, the JIRS, heard the case on 28 March.[1]
Police had seized a total of 1.3 tonnes of drugs, a dozen handguns and sums of
money.[1]The court found the ten guilty and sentenced them to prison.[2]The prison terms ranged from two to eleven years.[1]
The court barred the ten from carrying weapons and confiscated the seized items.[1]All ten were kept in detention except one who had fled, against whom the
court issued an arrest warrant.[1]Only one of the ten defendantsappealed the
sentences.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Arrested
10
Charged
10
Convicted
10
Sentenced
10
Prison
2 to 11 years
Agency
JIRS de Fort-de-France
Agency type
Court
Activity
Smuggling, Trafficking
Setting
Port or sea
Case stage
Sentenced
Sentence
Prison
Region
Martinique
Sources
RCIrci.fmFRCocaïne, crack, cannabis et armes : jusqu'à 11 ans de prison contre 10 prévenus
The 1.3-tonne seizure is a combined total of cocaine, crack and cannabis; no source breaks out the cannabis-only weight, so no cannabis figure is recorded.
The ten defendants are not named in the reports, and the fugitive against whom the court issued an arrest warrant is not identified.
One defendant appealed the sentences; the appeal outcome is not yet known.
Customs at the Le Boulou toll on the A9 seized 30 kilograms of cannabis from a Spanish-registered car in the night of 8 November 2026, on the Spain-to-France carriageway. The driver, tried in a plea-bargaining hearing, was sentenced by the Perpignan court on 10 November 2026 to one year in prison, a five-year ban from France and a 52,000 euro customs fine.
A 28-year-old driver tested positive for cannabis after rear-ending a car and injuring its driver at Percy-en-Normandie on 2 January 2026. The Coutances court sentenced him on 10 November 2026 to six months suspended imprisonment and cancelled his driving licence.
The criminal court in Troyes sentenced 47-year-old Ramzi Nefzaoui to 14 months in firm prison for drug trafficking and issued an arrest warrant. The case began when gendarmes stopped his Renault Laguna at Barberey-Saint-Sulpice in December 2025 and found cannabis resin, herb, cash and a scale.
The Fontainebleau criminal court sentenced a driver to five years in prison, including two years firm, over a fatal 2021 crash at Souppes-sur-Loing in which his 20-year-old passenger died. The court heard he had drunk alcohol and smoked cannabis and was driving at 135 km/h in a 30 km/h zone.
