French police find 150kg of cocaine smuggled in ballet shoes

French police seized 150 kilograms of pure cocaine hidden in a shipment of ballet shoes smuggled in from the Dominican Republic, Le Parisien newspaper reported yesterday.

Narcotics police arrested two Dominicans last week at the French capitals Charles de Gaulle airport in a sting operation and tracked down the shipment to an apartment in the east of Paris. The men were part of a Dominican drugs gang that also owned properties in The Netherlands and Spain, police said.

French police said the Dominican Republic was a major hub for drugs heading from South American cartels in Colombia and Venezuela to western Europe, the report said.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.