France's law enforcement agencies have seized 1.8 tonnes of cocaine from a ship off the coast of the island of Saint Martin, France's overseas collectivity in the northeastern Caribbean, in the French West Indies, BFMTV reports.

Once ashore, the crew of an unnamed speedboat with no registration number that docked in the bay of the collectivity's capital, Marigot, fled, leaving behind bales of drugs. An investigation is underway, and local law enforcement is searching for the sailors who fled, the report says.