Fifty kilos of cocaine go missing from Paris police HQ

PARIS (AFP) – French authorities
were grilling elite police officers on
Friday after more than 50 kilos of
seized cocaine worth up to three
million euros went missing from
the Paris police headquarters.
The cocaine, seized in raids in
July, was found to have gone
missing from a secure room on
Thursday in the latest major
embarrassment for the Paris
police.
Sniffer dogs were deployed and
many people are being questioned
by a team from the national
police’s internal affairs division.
“If the investigation shows that
the law has been broken… very firm
measures will be immediately
taken,” police said in a statement.
The cocaine was seized in raids
that saw the arrest of several
people, mainly Senegalese
nationals.
It followed an investigation into a
Senegalese network suspected of
supplying drugs in Paris’s gritty
northern areas.
The cocaine was stored in a secure
room at the police headquarters
but there was no close circuit
television in the area.
A source close to the investigation
said only three people had keys to
the room.
Several policemen were being
questioned, a source said. Many of
those working there told AFP they
were astounded at the
disappearance and said they did
not believe it was pilfered.
“It will be a thunderbolt if theft is
proved,” said one police source.
Another spoke of several possible
scenarios evoking “internal
tensions” within the organisation
and possible “score settling”.
Interior Minister Bernard
Cazeneuve pledged to deal with
the offenders in an “extremely firm
and merciless manner” if theft was
proven.
The revelations are a major
embarrassment for the Paris
criminal police, whose
headquarters overlooking the Seine
and located near the famed Notre
Dame cathedral have been
immortalised in several books and
films.
The headquarters attracted
unwelcome attention in April when
two elite French police officers
were charged with raping a
Canadian tourist there in a case
that has sent shockwaves across
France.
The 34-year-old woman said she
was raped in the police
headquarters at night after
meeting the officers during a night
of heavy drinking at an Irish pub.