Drugs, dirty money: the Special Services big operation | M6 | Zone Interdite

7 tonnes of cocaine, 86 tonnes of cannabis, tens of millions of Euros in cash and more than a million boxes of counterfeit medication. That is the edifying result of customs seizures in 2013. Behind these figures are front-line teams watching the borders and hunting down traffickers. For the first time on TV, crews from Zone Interdite have been allowed to accompany the men from the Customs Operational Division, the elite force responsible for the most delicate investigations. Information gathering, infiltration, use of grasses”, the infamous informants of the Customs service, but the division also disposes of a hard-hitting intervention force. From the investigation to the arrest, often eventful, of the traffickers, we are there right beside the customs officers. We discover that go-fasts, the speedy cars used by the criminals to transport the drugs, are now legion in France. We see how the customs manage to trace these convoys and how they intervene to stop them, sometimes at the risk of their own lives. The fight against the drug mafias is one of the customs’ priorities, both on land and on sea, where freighters loaded with hashish or cocaine are regularly boarded and searched. We also go to Aubervilliers, the new Chinatown of ready-to-wear, to follow a money laundering case. A thousand Asian wholesalers are established in the north of Paris. It’s even become the biggest European platform for made-in-China textile import-export. But it’s also the channel through which the Chinese mafia tries to launder money. The customs men uncover a tax evasion operation worth several hundred thousand Euros. And another cause of concern for the customs is the counterfeit medication from Asia that is now flooding into the European market.”