French police arrest 15 people for drug trafficking near the Olympic village

French police arrested 15 people for drug trafficking near the athletes' village built for the next Olympic Games north of Paris, police sources said on Wednesday (May 29).

They arrested the suspects at their homes on Tuesday morning and took 14 of them into custody, one of the sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Police and customs officials seized just under 10 kilos of cannabis herb and cannabis resin, 20,000 euros ($21,700) in cash and 48 mobile phones, the source said.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in early May that she expected an upsurge in crimes during the Paris Olympics. “There will be many more tourists,” she told Franceinfo. “That means criminals are going to prey on these tourists,” she said, pointing to pickpocketing, housing scams and other crimes.

The operation near the Olympic village targeted a deal point that police were monitoring in the run-up to the Olympic Games, which begin on July 26, another police source said.

In recent months, the police have intensified their operations in Seine-Saint-Denis, where the athletes' village is located. More than 14,000 people will live in the Olympic village, made up of 82 buildings spread across the communes of Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and Ile-Saint-Denis, north of Paris.

The village is the largest new Olympic construction project, located on a site beside the Seine that is the subject of regeneration efforts in the economically deprived suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis.

In a report published in mid-May, a Senate commission of inquiry warned of the growing influence of drug trafficking in France, marked in particular by an increase in violence linked to competition between criminal gangs. According to the senators, drug trafficking in France generates between 3 and 6 billion euros per year.