Rogue or government approved?

Venezuelan National Guardsmen arrested over drugs

Three members of Venezuela's National Guard have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the smuggling of a massive haul of cocaine on an Air France flight from Caracas to Paris.

French border police found 1.3 tonnes of cocaine in suitcases on a flight arriving from Caracas.

The seizure was one of the biggest ever to be made on French territory.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said he expected more arrests would be made over the coming days.

The drugs were stashed into 30 suitcases on an Air France flight which arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on 11 September, but news of the seizure were only made public on Saturday.

Nine-hundred kilos were seized at the airport, while another 400kg were found inside a lorry heading from Paris to Luxembourg after arriving from Venezuela.

Cross-border operation

On Sunday, Venezuelan officials launched an investigation into how the drugs got on board the flight.

Mr Rodriguez said two National Guard sergeants and a lieutenant had been detained on Sunday as part of the investigation.

Six people have already been arrested in France on suspicion of belonging to an international drugs smuggling ring. Three of them are reportedly from Britain, while the other three are from Italy.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the arrests were the result of intelligence sharing between French police and their European colleagues.

He said international co-operation between the continent's police forces was key as international drug traffickers were "constantly setting up new strategies".

"They are diversifying drug routes, so we therefore have to adapt our operations, and our strategies to these developments," he said at a news conference.

While according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Venezuela does not produce sizeable quantities of cocaine, it has become a transit country for cocaine from Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, which is shipped to the United States and Europe.