113 kg of cannabis resin seized from a lorry at Lauzerte; driver charged
Customs officers arrested a lorry driver on a country road at Lauzerte, Tarn-et-Garonne, on 1 July 2026 after he tried to force their roadblock, and found 113 kg of cannabis resin from Spain in a magnetic cache in the vehicle. A Montauban judge charged him with importing and transporting narcotics and with customs smuggling, and remanded him in pre-trial detention two days later.
Customs officers arrested a lorry driver carrying more than 100 kg of cannabis
resin on a country road at Lauzerte, Tarn-et-Garonne, on Wednesday 1 July 2026,
after he tried to force a customs roadblock in his lorry.[1]The officers
deployed tyre-deflating spikes under the wheels, and the truck stopped in the
middle of the carriageway.[1]The customs officers were lying in wait on the
country road, and a caption on the page said they had to use a stop stick to
intercept the truck.[1]
Officers found 113 kg of cannabis resin hidden in a magnetic cache in the truck,
which had come from Spain.[1]The resin, in a cache hidden in the structure of
the lorry, was described as worth several hundred thousand euros.[2]The truck
had come from Malaga in Spain.[2]
The driver was charged and placed in pre-trial detention by the Montauban court
on Friday 3 July 2026.[2]He was charged with importing, transporting and
unlawfully holding narcotics and with customs smuggling.[2]The court
justified holding him because he lives in Livorno, Italy, and has no address or
ties in France.[2]The Toulouse anti-narcotics office (Ofast), France’s
central drug-enforcement unit, was tasked with tracing the network behind the
shipment.[2]The Montauban public prosecutor opened a judicial investigation
into the drug-trafficking case.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
importation of narcotics; transport of narcotics; unlawful possession of narcotics; customs smuggling
Case stage
Charged
Region
Tarn-et-Garonne
Route
Spain → France
Sources
La Dépêche du Midiladepeche.frFR113 kg de cannabis saisis dans le Tarn-et-Garonne : le chauffeur tente une fuite désespérée avant que les douaniers ne crèvent ses pneus
La Dépêche du Midiladepeche.frFRIntercepté après avoir tenté de forcer le barrage de la douane en Tarn-et-Garonne : le chauffeur routier marocain accusé d’avoir convoyé 113 kg de cannabis placé en détention
Open questions the AI reported
No trial judgment or sentence had been reported by November 2026; the case was at the pre-trial investigation stage.
The lorry's registration country and the exact road number were not reported.
The interception is placed at Lauzerte in the first report and more precisely in the commune of Castelsagrat in the follow-up; both are used for one event.
The value of the 113 kg is given only as several hundred thousand euros, so no value figure is recorded.
The follow-up says the driver was born in July 1996 and lives in Livorno, but no name or further identifying details are recorded here.
Eight people were placed under formal investigation and remanded in custody in Toulon over a drug-trafficking network centred on the Val-des-Rougières estate in Hyères. Searches after the 3 November 2026 raids in four Var towns seized 7.7 kg of cannabis resin, 1 kg of herbal cannabis, €35,600 and two pistols.
Damien Coulange, 34, appeared before the Nevers criminal court on 4 November 2026 over 245 g of cannabis herb and 44 g of resin found when police searched his flat for an unrelated armed-robbery case in September 2025. He admitted dealing to pay a drug debt while already serving five years for armed robbery, and the prosecutor requested three years of immediate imprisonment.
A van caught fire on the A9 near Vergèze on 25 October 2026, revealing about 150 kg of burning cannabis resin alongside cigarettes and perfumes. The Brussels-based driver, tried for drug trafficking in Nîmes, was acquitted on the benefit of the doubt after saying he thought he was carrying olive oil.
Nineteen suspects were referred to the Paris criminal court over a network that allegedly paid for Guadeloupe-routed cocaine with cannabis shipped from mainland France. A twentieth suspect, jailed in Spain, will not stand trial with them, and a 3 November hearing will set the trial calendar.
