The April 30 health supplement of Le Monde in France came out with that shocking title, and announced that Le Monde has conducted a thorough investigation as “Project Overdose” to determine the extent to which drug and criminal cartels have extended their influence over France since 2022. The daily will publish 12 dossiers between April 30 and May 11. They reveal “that the country is undergoing a change in era with an explosion of drug imports and an ever greater structure of organized criminal groups.”
Le Monde then cited Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau who, in 2022, had already described “the infiltration of our societies by criminal networks, beyond the realm of fiction.” Le Monde continued, “Two years later, the picture has darkened still further, reaching new records for police drug seizures and profits for criminal organizations.” For this investigation, Le Monde was given access to the “Narcofiles” by the “Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.”
In their first installment Le Monde reports on the successful dismantling, by collaboration of French, Colombian and the U.S. (DEA) forces of a sophisticated organized crime group, operating in France and Colombia and using Dubai as a safe haven from which to operate, which was determined to flood Europe with Colombian cocaine.
Behind what seemed originally to be a large criminal organization making money by milking state funds allocated for aid to companies that had to shut down during the to Covid-19 pandemic, or stealing government funds from companies involved in “climate” bonds, and other such scams, it turned out that it was all merely a coverup for very large-scale narcotics trafficking and money laundering.
At its heart, 800 kgs of cocaine which had been melted in Colombia into loaves of “panela,” a kind of caramelized sugar. The cocaine was introduced during the heating process, making it undetectable. When it arrived at its terminus, a chemist would then extract the cocaine. This operation represented a €1 million investment, to be multiplied by 30 to get an idea of the actual profit rate after sales.
On April 25, 2022, that package arrived in France, and in the subsequent days, police arrested some 15 gang members. In November 2022, law enforcement dismantled another operation of the same gang. This time 200 kgs of cocaine had been hidden at the heart of a 20 ton hydraulic press, imported from Mexico and stored in the Stuttgart region. At the heart of the machine’s enormous cylinder, which they had to break open, the gang had hidden 200 kgs of methamphetamines.
The end of this particular gang occurred in the summer of 2023, when law enforcement opened a boat’s gearbox imported to Holland, finding 200 kgs of cocaine inside.
The exposé is of note, but the question is whether or not Le Monde intends to use it to promote drug legalization.
