France seizes 1.3 tonnes of cocaine from Venezuela

French police have seized 1.3 tonnes of pure cocaine found on board an Air France cargo plane, Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced Saturday. The drugs, seized on September 11, had been packed into 30 suitcases, Valls told a news conference in Nanterre, outside Paris. A source close to the investigation said the flight had originated in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, adding that the haul had a street value of some 200 million euros ($270 million). It was the biggest drug seizure ever carried out in the Paris region, Valls said, displaying the 30 empty suitcases that had contained the cocaine and were not linked to any of the passengers on the flight. Valls said four tonnes of cocaine has been seized in France since the start of the year.