• Sweden edition

Swede caught with 1.4 tonnes of cocaine

Published: 28 Jul 10 08:56 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/28040/20100728/

A 54-year-old Swedish man is currently in custody on the Caribbean island of Martinique after French customs seized 1.4 tonnes of cocaine on his boat estimated to be worth about 800 million kronor ($109.51 million).

On June 4th, French customs seized a sailboat lying 40 nautical miles from island of Martinique in the West Indies. On the boat, customs officials found 1.4 tonnes of cocaine hidden among a number of jute sacks, Dagens Nyheter reported on Wednesday.

The cocaine seizure is the largest ever made in France. According to French customs, there are both Swedish and Spanish connections to the seizure, which was intended to be sold on the European market. The boat belongs to the man, who has been detained in Martinique since June 6th, according to DN.

"I have tried to visit the man, but so far, I have not received any permission from the authorities," said Philippe Huyghues-Despointes, Sweden's honorary consul in Fort-de-France on Martinique.

The man lives in western Sweden, has sat on a number of companies and has been previously convicted and sentenced to a short prison sentence.

"We believe that the investigation will take a long time," said the Ministry for Foreign Affairs' press director Anders Jörle.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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09:06 July 28, 2010 by sodafox
Hell... that would've really filled his floaties :)
09:17 July 28, 2010 by Soft Boiled
Thats a rather big habit! :0
10:24 July 28, 2010 by countrysidedrive
He is in big trouble. What a idiot.
11:17 July 28, 2010 by leroy
Oh no a swede Oh no cannot be true and so holy and pure. Never
11:25 July 28, 2010 by jonathanjames61
@leroy,oh yes its does hapen,oh yes its true,holiness is Gods act ,purness a man can never attain ,hahahahahaahah,he only want to create more junkies in our poor youths.Thank God he never made it,less curt cubain
11:59 July 28, 2010 by sodafox
oh grow up leroy.... ur no better than the swedes you put crap on.
13:11 July 28, 2010 by bungle
Lets hope he serves his sentence in a real prison and not a swedish 'hotel'
14:50 July 28, 2010 by eZee.se
Whoa!

Thats a serious amount of blow!

On a side topic:

For some reason TheLocal has not covered Pirate Party's offer to host WikiLeaks if they US govt. goes after it...

google is your friend ;)
17:12 July 28, 2010 by Syftfel
Don't you people understand? The 1.4 tons of coke wasn't his. It was an accident. He doesn't know how it got there. He didn't do it. He's innocent. Somebody planted it. It's a total mystery. It must have self-materialized. Evil spirits did it. He thought it was corn starch. Somebody asked him to transport sugar. It must have been a mistake. How could this have happened? It's not his. It's an Act of God. Someone else put it there. He's being set up. A stranger left it there. It must have jumped in the boat by itself. When he woke up, it was just there. He doesn't understand it. An octopus in the ocean threw it in there. He's not guilty.
18:19 July 28, 2010 by vicarno
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa oh my gush haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. @Syftfel you have said all.

@foxysoda why are you attacking leroy...........does it mean some swedes are not criminals you should grow up not leroy.

Just sad he has dragged my dear Sweden to the mud......He MUST serve his term in a Somalian jail.
22:52 July 28, 2010 by wxman
sodafox, you misunderstood leroy's by 180 degrees. It was sarcasm implying the opposite.
04:45 July 29, 2010 by omphus
Leroy ledouche
04:58 July 29, 2010 by Da Goat
Nah I think he said it was just for personal use! he just was sailing to another place to buy a big straw!
05:58 July 29, 2010 by mojofat
His other boat had the strippers...
20:14 July 30, 2010 by Mr. Puppy
In the future we're going to look back at the failed war on drugs with the same view as we now look back on the prudishness of Victorian society towards sex. Mind-altering substances have always been with us, always will be, are a part of life, and a lot of those that are illegal now will be legal again within our lifetimes.

This poor guy's only problem was being born before his time.
21:34 July 30, 2010 by farnoxo
@Syftfel - nice to see someone who doesn't descend into the "you are all evil and will be swallowed up by my great great god called [insert name of you current religion] rhetoric that usually happens after the 3rd post on every article.

@Mr. Puppy - pleasant to encounter a "social realist". From the moment we realised we could clobber woolly mammoths over the head with clubs, we have continually quested for ways to bend our minds.

I am a realist and I do know that certain drugs will (as in this is axiomatic) f$%k you up over the long term,let the good people decide themselves whether to dabble or not. I mean suicide is legal (like Wikipedia I am on shaky ground here - correct where necessary), so why not make drugs legal. As they say in the famous last attempt to get people to drink Dr. Pepper ... what's the worst that could happen?
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