11 French held in Thailand with cannabis, source says

Eleven French nationals have been detained in Thailand since the start of the summer after being arrested with several kilogrammes of cannabis in their luggage, a police source told AFP on Tuesday.

A diplomatic source told AFP that French foreign ministry departments in Paris were monitoring the cases and were in contact with the families.

Relatives of some of the young people told French daily Liberation that they may have been deceived into acting as drug mules in exchange for free holidays. Liberation said the offer allegedly came from the manager of a smartphone trading company and that relatives said the French nationals did not know what was inside the suitcases.

Liberation identified at least five young people aged 18 to 26 who were arrested at airports in Thailand and Hong Kong.

AFP spoke to a woman whose 20-year-old brother-in-law was arrested in mid-July as he prepared to travel from Thailand to Paris with another Frenchman. She said customs officers found 16.8 kilogrammes of cannabis in a locked suitcase for which the pair did not have the combination.

The woman said her brother-in-law had been contacted through Snapchat by someone who said the trip was legal and involved transporting phones, with flights and accommodation covered.

France's PNACO prosecutor's office, which handles drug crime cases, said investigations were under way to identify organisers and possible networks and to understand how the operations worked.