French navy seized 10.7 tons of cocaine with a street value of hundreds of millions of dollars from a Brazilian fishing boat in the Gulf of Guinea, officials said.
The operation off the West African coast targeted a Brazilian-flagged boat measuring about twenty meters. French authorities requested the raid based on a tip from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the French Maritime Prefecture of the Atlantic said.
The 10,693 kg of cocaine seized has an "estimated market value of nearly 695 million euros," the prefecture added.
The Brest prosecutor's office, which has jurisdiction over such cases, ordered the destruction of the drugs but decided not to press charges against the crew.
The French navy has deployed one or two ships in the Gulf of Guinea, assisted by maritime patrol aircraft, as part of a long-running security operation. / BGNES
