Customs officers at the main airport in New Caledonia have seized 17 kilos of cannabis.
The newspaper Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes reports the drug had been on an Air Caledonie domestic flight from Ouvea in the Loyalty Islands heading to the Magenta airport in the capital, Noumea, on Friday.
But the traffickers plans to pick up the consignment were foiled when bad weather forced the plane to land at the international airport at Tontouta, where customs officers found the cannabis during a search of the baggage hold.
The cannabis, worth about 30-thousand US dollars, is said to be equivalent to the total amount of cannabis seized in the territory during the whole of 2003.