Police in France seize record haul of face masks near Paris that were intended to be sold on black market amid Covid-19 crisis

Police in France seize record haul of face masks near Paris that were intended to be sold on black market amid Covid-19 crisis.

POLICE in France have seized 140,000 face masks intended to be sold on the black market in a record haul since the French government banned the resale of protective masks to prioritise their distribution to health workers in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Two individuals were arrested while they were unloading boxes in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, on Saturday.

One of them said he was a business owner and had bought the masks, including 5,000 high protection FFP2 masks, in the Netherlands for a total of €80,000.

According to police, the masks were to be sold to construction workers for a large profit.

In March, 32,500 masks from China were seized from a warehouse near Paris and 28,800 masks were discovered in a shop in a district of Chinese wholesalers, also in the Paris region.