A 19-year-old French tourist was detained at the Santo Domingo airport when he was trying to leave the Dominican Republic with 1.6 kg of cocaine in small envelopes that he had ingested, local authorities announced this Tuesday, October 21.
After a transfer to a health center, “he expelled 141 bags of cocaine, wrapped in black and blue latex,” according to the press release from the National Drug Control Directorate (DNCD) of the Caribbean country.
The French citizen, whose identity has not been revealed, is linked to “international drug trafficking” and “criminal networks” that use “mules of different nationalities to transport drugs to the United States and Europe,” according to the text.
“Take your ticket and go to Santo Domingo”
These networks “recruit them by telling them: ‘We are going to give you so much (money), take your ticket and go to Santo Domingo.’ Once they arrive, a person contacts them and provides them (the drug),” said a source in the investigation.
In April, another 29-year-old French citizen was arrested at the same airport with 790 grams of cocaine in his stomach. I was trying to return to France.
In 2024, the Dominican Republic seized 37.2 tons of cocaine, according to official data. The country is a major hub for shipping cocaine to the United States and Europe, according to the CIA.
The “Air Cocaine” affair has fueled legal chronicles in the Dominican Republic and France for years, after the interception in 2013 at the Punta Cana airport of a Falcon 50 with 680 kilos of cocaine on board. Among the forty people arrested were four Frenchmen, including two pilots, eventually acquitted during an appeal trial in 2021.
Source: BFM TV
