On 4 November, an operation by the anti-crime brigade (BAC) in Passamaïnty interrupted a drug deal.[1][2][3] Officers then searched a flat suspected of storing drugs, first reported as yielding 3 kg of cannabis and 8,000 euros in cash.[1][2][3] The later trial account put the seizure at 34 bars weighing 3.334 kg, with 8,495 euros in cash and two telephones found at the wholesaler’s home.[4] Three people were arrested and brought before the public prosecutor, two of them jailed pending trial on the following Monday while the third was to be summoned at a later date.[5]

On Monday 9 November, two young men aged 21 and 23 appeared before the Mamoudzou criminal court after being arrested by the national police in Passamaïnty at a watched sales point.[4] The younger man sold mainly to fishermen, and a search of his home found nothing.[4] The court sentenced the wholesaler to 30 months in prison, 12 of them suspended, with continued detention, and gave the street seller a 15-month sentence fully suspended with two years of probation.[4]

During the same operation officers also searched the home of a tax administration employee at square Papaye, with no outcome reported.[5] The next day the investigation continued in central Mamoudzou, where a buyer was arrested just after obtaining cannabis at another sales point.[5]