On Thursday, July 27th, a Peruvian woman carrying three kilograms of cocaine shot and wounded a customs officer during a customs inspection at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport, the public prosecutor’s office reported on Friday.
The customs officer was injured by “a person of Peruvian nationality detained during a customs inspection,” the prosecutor said. The assault took place while the customs officer was escorting the Peruvian woman to the toilet, according to the Solidaires Douanes union. The passenger seized the officer’s weapon and fired “a single shot”, wounding her in the waist, as reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
We condemn this unprecedentedly violent attack.
Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy
“We avoided tragedy by an inch,” announced the Solidaires Douanes, which welcomed the professionalism of the other customs officers, who immobilized the offender without the need to fire another shot. The wounded officer was transported to the Robert Ballanger hospital where some examinations, including an MRI scan, were conducted. During the search of the young woman’s luggage, the customs officers discovered three kilograms of cocaine, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy, and Thomas Cazenave, Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, condemned the attack and demand sanctions according to the seriousness of the offense. The ministers announced that a law suit would soon be filed by the customs administration. They indicated that a second officer had also been injured in the knee during the incident. He fell while trying to immobilize the offender.
The 20-year old Peruvian woman has been taken into custody and is being investigated for “attempted voluntary manslaughter of a public official and drug offenses”. The investigation has been entrusted to the research section of the Gendarmerie des transports aĂ©riens, according to AFP.
