“The quantities of narcotics are significant”: cocaine found in boxes of bananas destined for several stores

Les paquets étaient en dehors des cartons de bananes (illustration). Unsplash – Pop & Zebra

This Wednesday evening, September 11, 2024, four stores in Bourgogne Franche-Comté received a delivery of fruits and vegetables. Among the pallets of bananas, carefully packaged cocaine was discovered under the boxes of fruit. In Bessoncourt and Sochaux, the quantity of drugs is estimated at around twenty kilos.

This Wednesday, September 11, 2024, while unloading a delivery of fruit intended for the Grand Frais store in Le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire), an employee made a surprising discovery: packets of cocaine hidden among the pallets of bananas. Alerted, the police intervened and seized a dozen kilos of this drug, indicate the Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace.

Three other stores in the chain specializing in the sale of fruit and vegetables, in Beaune (Côte d'Or), Bessoncourt (Territoire de Belfort) and Sochaux (Doubs), also received shipments containing cocaine. Each time, the police and gendarmes who intervened on the scene made the same astonishing discovery.

“The drugs were not in direct contact with the fruit”

This Thursday, three of the four public prosecutors involved confirmed the operations and seizures, without however specifying the exact quantities. “In Sochaux, the quantities of narcotics are significant", explains Paul-Édouard Lallois, public prosecutor of Montbéliard before adding: “The drug loaves were discovered when the truck was unloaded. It is important to reassure consumers: the packets were outside the banana boxes, the drugs were not in direct contact with the fruit."

The Besançon organized and specialized crime division, as well as the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast), are in charge of the investigation.