The French navy has seized 9.6 tons of cocaine worth more than $600 million from a fishing vessel off the coast of West Africa, officials announced Thursday.

The bust, carried out Monday by two naval ships and a helicopter, followed a joint tip-off from French, British and maritime intelligence services.

Authorities said the vessel, which carried no national registration, was intercepted as part of France’s long-running Corymbe mission in the Gulf of Guinea, a region plagued by piracy.

Images released showed officers unloading stacks of cocaine packages from the boat.

The haul brings French maritime drug seizures to more than 54 tons in 2025 alone.

Similar busts on fishing vessels have been reported worldwide, including a U.S. Coast Guard operation earlier this year that netted 10,000 pounds of cocaine in the Atlantic, CBS News has reported.

Officials warned that traffickers increasingly use fishing boats as cover for global smuggling routes.