The fight against synthetic drugs will be increased in France with a strengthening of the powers of customs officers, the development of an algorithm to scan packages and the recruitment of cyber customs officers, announced, Friday May 17, Thomas Cazenave, the Minister Delegate for public accounts.
“In force since Wednesday, we have extended the powers of customs officers to seize and control” products “legal which may be necessary to create” synthetic drugs, declared Mr. Cazenave, traveling to Marseille.
While seizures of synthetic drugs by customs have quadrupled in three years, he congratulated Marseille agents for the dismantling, in April, of an international pregabalin network, in front of bags of these tablets, which are usually prescribed against epilepsy in particular but whose use is misused and which is nicknamed “poor man’s drug” due to its low cost. According to a communicated of the ministry responsible for public accounts, “customs officers made 1,624 findings, totaling more than 1,500 kilograms of intercepted products”in 2023.
“Catch all” device
The strengthening of the powers of customs officers corresponds to a “enrichment of the “catch all” system [“tout attraper”, en français] », explained the minister. This European provision consists of carrying out a seizure, whenever there is doubt, “even if the product is legal”he continued. “We have the impression that this will be used to manufacture synthetic drugs? We get it. We don’t ask the question. »
In addition, the authorities began to “install and test intelligent scanners in large freight centers”explained Mr. Cazenave, because “the vast majority of synthetic drugs go through express freight, postal freight”.
Currently, “we are developing a new algorithm with artificial intelligence to pre-identify whether there are synthetic drugs in packages”he explained, affirming that the objective was to control “100% of term parcels”. Finally, as the sale of synthetic drugs occurs via the Internet and the “dark Net”, the minister announced the arrival of sixty-six cyber customs officers before the end of 2024 in a unit specializing in the fight against cybercrime.