Gendarmes find 369.6 kg of cannabis in Moroccan vegetable truck at PK55
Mauritanian gendarmes seized 369.6 kg of cannabis hidden in a Moroccan truck carrying vegetables at the PK55 crossing on the Western Sahara frontier on Thursday 3 May 2018, and arrested those involved. The load was bound for Niger along the trans-African highway through Mauritania, a route the account says has carried drugs before.
🇲🇷 PK55 border post, Dakhlet Nouadhibou, Mauritania
Mauritanian gendarmesseized369.6 kg of chanvre indien, the French term for
cannabis, hidden in a truck carrying vegetables from Morocco.[1]The gendarmes
arrested the people involved in the case.[1]
The seizure took place at PK55, a crossing point on Mauritania’s border with
Western Sahara.[1]The Moroccan truck was travelling the trans-African highway
that links Morocco to sub-Saharan Africa through Mauritania.[1]The cargo was
bound for Niger.[1]
Moroccan news agency Atlasinfo published the same account, crediting the seizure
to security sources.[2]
The account came from security sources, which said the same vigilance that
caught the drug had recently been criticised in a documentary made for Al
Jazeera by a Moroccan production company.[1]Police and gendarmes had seized
drug loads hidden in vegetable trucks from Morocco before.[1]Two Moroccan
drivers who regularly use the road criticised the Mauritanian stretch of the
trans-African highway.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
No date is given for the interception beyond it having happened on the Thursday before the 5 May 2018 publication, so 3 May 2018 is used as the incident date by inference.
No number of people arrested, names or nationalities were published.
The reports do not say how many packages were carried, or whether the 369.6 kg was cannabis resin or another cannabis product; they call it chanvre indien.
No value, charges or court outcome were reported.
Only one text was found, published by Cridem via Afriactuel and by Atlasinfo; both carry identical agency-derived wording, so independent corroboration is lacking.
Gendarmes at the PK55 border post in Dakhlet Nouadhibou found about 26 kg of cannabis resin hidden in a vehicle heading into Mauritania on 29 September 2026 and arrested two foreign nationals. The gendarmerie sealed the drug and began judicial proceedings against the two.
Police and gendarmerie units announced a run of raids in July and August 2026, breaking up at least ten networks and arresting dozens of people. The largest seizures were 202 kg of cannabis resin hidden in food shipments, 230 kg in a truck trailer at Bassiknou and 210 kg at Nouadhibou, alongside smaller amounts and thousands of psychotropic tablets.
Police intercepted 30 slabs of cannabis weighing 27 kg at the El-Messellem control post in Guidimakha wilaya on 19 November 2025, arresting a driver caught transporting the load from a neighbouring country. The Ghabou commissariat opened an inquiry.
Customs officers at Rosso, on Mauritania's border with Senegal, seized a large cannabis load from traffickers heading for Nouakchott, the customs service announced on Facebook. Customs released a video of the cannabis wrapped and hidden in plastic baskets, but gave no weight, count or arrests.
