Paris police 'lose €2.5m drugs haul'

NEARLY 52kg of cocaine, seized in drug raids in Paris earlier this month, has reportedly vanished from police headquarters where it was being stored.

The drugs, with an estimated street value of €2.5million, were seized when police dismantled a trafficking network based in the French capital’s 18th and 19th arrondissements on July 4.

But, Le Parisien reports, sniffer dogs were used to search the quai des Orfèvres offices of France’s equivalent of Scotland Yard yesterday evening, after the cocaine was reported missing from a secure storage room.

The drugs were last seen on July 23, the paper said.

The prefecture said in a statement: “This investigation will look into the whether applicable rules were followed for the management of evidence in the offices of this brigade and in general at 36 quai des Orfèvres.”

It warned that if evidence of a crime was discovered “very strong sanctions will be taken immediately”.

Photo: Jean Menjoulet