A French warplane recently intercepted a tourist single-seater whose panicked Polish pilot had dropped several packages of narcotics over rural towns in south-eastern France, the army and prosecutors told us on Tuesday.
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The Rafale had been pursuing this plane from Freiburg on Saturday, which had upset authorities after it flew over a former nuclear power plant in eastern France, a restricted area. That route was “not in line with his flight plan” and “radio responses were unclear,” a military spokesman told AFP.
During the approach, the fighter plane witnessed “a very erratic attitude” and “a great commotion” from the pilot, who opened the door of his single-seater to drop packages, the source continued, adding that such intervention by the Army was extremely serious rarely.
When the gendarmerie was sent to the scene of the crime, they found on the ground about fifteen of these packages scattered in the Ardèche department, containing about 30 kg of a white powder that is currently being analyzed, the prosecutor announced.
The pilot, known to French justice for drug-related offenses, was arrested after landing at an airfield in the south-east of the country and taken into police custody. More than 45,000 euros in cash were found in the cockpit of the Polish-registered plane and in the suspect’s pocket.
The military spokesman emphasized that the transport of drugs by plane in Europe was “not a procedure that we are aware of”. In general, suspicious behavior that requires Air Force intervention is more about taking “pictures of sensitive locations” for “intelligence,” he said.
More than two tonnes of bales of cocaine were found on French beaches in the English Channel between late February and early March, demonstrating the increase in trafficking of the drug in Europe, mainly from South America.