French customs officers have intercepted nearly 3.9 metric tonnes of cocaine, valued at roughly €225 million ($261.45 million), concealed inside a container of plastic waste that had originated from Ghana, in one of the country’s biggest drug busts of the year.
The seizure took place on Thursday, September 7, at the northern port of Dunkirk, where officers found the drugs packed into 167 separate bales hidden within the waste container.
According to France’s organised crime prosecutor’s office, the shipment had been headed in part for Antwerp, and the criminal network believed to be behind it was already on investigators’ radar before the bust took place.
Authorities believe the operation is tied to a far bigger criminal web. Dutch and French investigators reportedly hold information linking the shipment, at least in part, to the criminal organisation of fugitive Dutch drug kingpin Jos Leijdekkers, widely known as “Bolle Jos.”
Leijdekkers is believed to be hiding out in Sierra Leone and remains one of Europe’s most wanted men, having already been sentenced in absentia by a Rotterdam court to 24 years in prison over earlier cocaine shipments totalling almost 7,000 kilograms.
Belgian media reported that the intercepted drugs had been bound for a business address in Dordrecht, and Dutch investigators have since moved on the case, with a man in Dordrecht already arrested in connection with the seizure as authorities work to unravel the wider network involved.
The seized cocaine has since been destroyed, and French prosecutors have opened a formal investigation, with charges under review including organised narcotics importation and participation in a criminal association, offences that carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.
The bust adds to what has already been a heavy year for French anti-narcotics enforcement, with customs officials seizing 108.81 tonnes of narcotics across the country in 2025 alone, worth an estimated €2.197 billion.
