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Three
members of Venezuela's National Guard have been arrested on suspicion of
involvement in the smuggling of a massive haul of cocaine on an Air France
flight from Caracas to Paris.
French
border police found 1.3 tonnes of cocaine in 31 suitcases on a flight arriving
from Caracas.
The seizure
was one of the biggest ever to be made on French territory.
Venezuelan
Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said he expected more arrests would be made
over the coming days.
The drugs
were stashed into the suitcases on the Air France flight which arrived at
Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on 11 September, but details of the seizures
had been withheld for "operational reasons", French officials said.
About a
tonne of the drugs was seized at the airport, while the remainder was found
inside a lorry heading from Paris to Luxembourg after arriving from Venezuela.
Air France
said it was investigating whether there was any complicity within the company.
The drugs
had been destined for the 'Ndrangheta, the Italian mafia based in Calabria that
controls some 80% of all cocaine imports into Europe.
Cross-border
operation
Venezuelan
officials have now launched an investigation into how the drugs - worth more
than £100m ($160m) - got on board the flight.
Mr
Rodriguez said two National Guard sergeants and a lieutenant from the anti-drug
unit had been detained on Sunday as part of the investigation.
Six people
have already been arrested in France on suspicion of belonging to an international
drugs smuggling ring. Three of them were from Britain, while the other three
were from Italy.
The names
of those detained have so far not been released.
French
Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the arrests were the result of intelligence
sharing between French police and their European colleagues.
He said
international co-operation between the continent's police forces was key as
international drug traffickers were "constantly setting up new
strategies".
"They
are diversifying drug routes, so we therefore have to adapt our operations, and
our strategies to these developments," he said at a news conference.
The United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Venezuela does not produce sizeable
quantities of cocaine, but it has become a transit country for cocaine from
Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, which is shipped to the United States and Europe.
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The 30 suitcases were reportedly not registered to any passenger on board |
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