‘Looking for the treasure’: Report of cocaine lost at sea lures hundreds to the beach

Vivian SongOctober 31, 2026 — 3:21pmParis: An apparent 15-tonne cocaine loss off the French coast has drawn crowds to beaches as people hope to cash in on the loot.Officials said reports that police officers were attempting to intercept an illegal shipment that had been dumped off the Aquitaine coast had attracted would-be sellers to the beaches of south-west France.The beach at Biscarrosse. News crews have captured groups of masked men loitering on this beach this week, reportedly looking for the drugsGetty ImagesThe opportunists have joined gendarmes, patrolling the coast along the Gironde and Pyrénées-Atlantiques since Tuesday, scanning the horizon for any glimpse of the cocaine cargo.“I’ve been looking for four days, I’ve done almost the entire coast,” one woman, identified as Leina, told RMC radio near the town of Le Porge.“What motivates me is simply money. I can rebuild my life, buy a house, a car... I’m going to be 30, after a while you have to move forward.“It’s not with €100 ($160) per day that I’m going to advance anywhere. So I’m looking for the treasure like everyone else.”Another man, who identified himself as Guillaume, said he was willing to risk 10 years in prison and €7.5 million – the maximum penalty for unlawful transport, possession, acquisition, supply and use of narcotics – for the chance to get his hands on the drugs.“It’s dangerous indeed, but life is hard, so it doesn’t matter if we don’t do things legally. What we want is just the money, to get by a little,” he told RMC.Footage captured by news channel TF1 showed young men loitering on the beaches of Biscarrosse, in Landes, before pulling up their masks and scattering as drones approached.One of the men said the group had travelled for three hours and had spent the night hoping to find some of the cache. The group was stopped by police who conducted identity checks.Xavier Labrouche, the head of the Vieux-Boucau municipal police, told France 3 that police had noticed “a rather unusual number of people out at night for this time of year”.Martial Zaninetti, mayor of Le Porge in the Gironde, announced the closure of the town’s beaches on Wednesday until further notice after security cameras showed “200 lamps” wandering the beach at night.He denounced the influx of motorbikes and quad bikes that have trampled the coast and were “destroying the ecosystem”.Police said several people looking for the cocaine cargo were also fined after trying to enter a military-controlled site in Landes on Wednesday.It is not clear exactly where the spill happened, but local media reported that a drug transfer in the Bay of Biscay between a ship and a smaller boat had gone wrong.No drugs have so far been found and investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the information was false.Drugs have previously been washed ashore in the area. In 2019, police recovered 1010 kilograms of cocaine in an operation named “White Tide” in which bottles and packets of cocaine were washed up on beaches from Brittany to Landes. The drugs, which originated from Colombia, had been unloaded off the coast of Gironde.“We have already had to deal with this type of situation and we have very specific instructions to prevent people from getting their hands on these bundles,” Pierre Froustey, the mayor of Vieux-Boucau, told France 3.Telegraph, LondonGet a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.More:DrugsFranceGermanyColombiaCrimeFor subscribersFrom our partners