4,629 cannabis plants destroyed in Papara forest, Tahiti
Gendarmes found 4,629 cannabis plants growing on about 3,000 sq m of forest at Papara in western Tahiti on 27 October 2017 and destroyed them. They estimated the resale value at more than 800,000 euros; no arrests were reported.
On 27 October 2017, gendarmes of the Papara brigade in the Windward Islands
gendarmerie company carried out a narcotics search in a wooded mountainside
area.[1]In a forest in the commune of Papara, in western Tahiti, they found a
cannabis plantation covering about 3,000 square metres (0.3 hectares).[2]The
operation drew on substantial personnel and equipment deployed on the ground.[2]
Officers counted 4,629 cannabis plants growing at the site.[1]The gendarmes
destroyed all of the plants together with the growing infrastructure found at
the site.[1]The gendarmes estimated the cannabis, known locally in French
Polynesia as pakalolo, would have been worth more than 800,000 euros at resale.[2]
Growers of such plantations face ten years in prison.[2]The find belonged to
a wider gendarmerie crackdown in which about 15,000 plants were seized and
destroyed in 15 days, compared with about 30,000 in a usual year.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
No arrests, detentions, suspects or growers are named in either account.
The 3,000 sq m area is reported as approximate, so the 0.3-hectare figure is a direct conversion of that estimate.
No cannabis weight was published, so no kilograms are recorded; the 800,000-euro figure is the gendarmes' resale estimate.
The 15,000 plants in 15 days and 30,000 plants per year figures describe the wider crackdown and annual total, not this seizure, and are excluded from figures.
Gendarmes and Faa'a municipal police raided a home in Faa'a and arrested one person, who the Papeete court sentenced to 18 months of firm imprisonment. Officers seized 302 cannabis plants and 382 grams of cannabis herb, alongside methamphetamine and cash held in the same operation.
Arrested 1Charged 1Plants destroyed 302Cannabis 382 g
Gendarmes on the French Polynesian island of Moorea seized 375 cannabis plants, or about eight kilograms of herb, in a helicopter-supported operation on 20 March 2025. One person was identified and implicated; the operation followed a ferry-terminal seizure of 13 cannabis pots from two passengers arriving from Moorea.
A two-week operation across the territory ended with 7,419 cannabis plants destroyed, 17.2 kg of herb, 31.57 g of ice and 80 ecstasy tablets seized, and 15.7 million XFP in assets. Police implicated 395 people and held 45 in custody. It was an enforcement operation, not a change in the law.
Gendarmes found and seized cannabis plants in Papara on Tahiti and on Taha'a on 9 September 2013, counting 2,388 in all. Three men in Papara were questioned and summoned to court, while no owner had yet been identified for the two Taha'a plantations, whose 1,800 plants were burned.
