1,700 kg of cannabis seized from sailboat off Martinique; five charged
French patrol vessel La Combattante intercepted a sailboat about 200 km southwest of Martinique on 29 June 2023 and seized 1,700 kg of cannabis plus 2 kg of cocaine. The five crew were handed to OFAST Caraibe on 1 July, charged with organised-gang drug and weapons offences and remanded in custody.
🇫🇷 At sea, about 200 km southwest of Martinique · France
In the night of 29 June 2023, French forces boarded a suspect sailboat about 200
km southwest of Martinique.[1]The patrol vessel La Combattante and a customs
coast-guard maritime patrol aircraft were deployed to board the sailboat
suspected of drug trafficking.[1]Five crew members were aboard the sailboat
when it was boarded.[1]On 1 July 2023 the drugs, the sailboat and the five
suspects were handed to the OFAST Caraibe office on the instruction of the
Fort-de-France JIRS prosecutor.[2]After initial inquiries they were brought
before an investigating judge, charged with organised-gang drug and weapons
offences and criminal association, and remanded in pre-trial detention.[2]
Officers found many suspect bales aboard that tested positive for cannabis,
totalling 1,700 kg of cannabis alongside 2 kg of cocaine.[1]The interception
followed a tip from the United States Joint InterAgency Task Force-South and
support from a customs coast-guard maritime patrol aircraft.[2]
The Armed Forces in the Antilles described it as their fourth seizure of 2023,
bringing their total to nearly 4.7 tonnes of narcotics removed from distribution
networks.[2]
Photos and video
Interception by the FAA of the sailboat carrying cannabis and cocaine. Photo: FAAPhoto details
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Source: Martinique La 1èreUnloading of the seized drugs by OFAST officers. Photo: FAAPhoto details
RCIrci.fmFRSaisie de 1,7 tonne de cannabis au large de la Martinique
Open questions the AI reported
The 2 kg of cocaine seized alongside the cannabis is a non-cannabis substance and is excluded from the cannabis figures.
Mer et Marine calls this the fifth cannabis seizure of the year while RCI, La 1ère and the Armed Forces account calls it the fourth; the report uses the fourth-seizure account.
The five suspects were not named and no ages or nationalities were published.
A later France-Antilles justice item reports five people convicted on 3 October 2025 over the 1,703.76 kg seizure, but that page could not be opened in full, so no court outcome is recorded here.
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.
