By John Baggaley

RABAT, July 6 (Reuter) Drug experts from European countries are due to meet
Moroccan officials on Tuesday to follow the trail of nearly six tonnes of
pure cocaine, with a street value estimated at $500 million, destined for
Europe but washed up on Moroccan beaches.

Interior Minister Driss Basri asked the specialists from France, Spain,
Italy, Portugal and Germany to come to Rabat after what began with a few
packets of powder found by children on June 23 ended up as five tonnes, 883
kg and 140 grammes of cocaine.

One Moroccan expert put the street value of this at more than $500 million. A
British antinarcotics agent last month put a similar value per tonne.

``Taking account of the important quantities of the drug seized and the
international dimension, Moroccan authorities would be happy to welcome the
antidrug service representatives... to investigate together the origin of
the drug, its destination and networks in this traffic,'' Basri's published
letter to his European ministerial counterparts said.

In a statement carried at the weekend by the official news agency MAP, the
antinarcotics team in Basri's ministry said the drug came from Colombia, had
been transferred to a ship off Las Palmas and was heading towards the
PortugueseSpanish border.

``The operation was supervised by a Spaniard who ordered the drug be thrown
overboard after a machinery breakdown and the failure to rendezvous at sea
with another small ship which was to have ensured the recovery of the drug,''
said the statement.

It added that with help from foreign agencies and Interpol, Moroccan police
were ``particularly interested'' in a ship which had anchored in the river
port of Kenitra, north of Rabat, for repairs.

It gave no other detail on whether the ship remained at anchor or had sailed.

British antinarcotics expert Derek Plumbly, on a visit to Morocco last month
as the cocaine was being washed up, said at the time: ``One would assume that
it was headed for western Europe not Morocco and that something happened at
sea.''

Plumbly, Britain's International Drugs Coordinator, said his visit was not
linked to the cocaine but with what he termed Morocco's position as a major
producer of cannabis resin.

Last month, the Moroccan interior ministry announced it had drafted a law
increasing the maximum jail term for drug traffickers to 30 years from 10
years, with a maximum fine of 800,000 dirhams ($85,000)

Morocco launched a crackdown on drug smuggling last year, and the interior
minister said recently it had seized 103 tonnes of cannabis bound for Europe
in 1996. It had also arrested more than 18,000 drug traffickers, including
342 foreigners.

Last month, Morocco and Belgium agreed to strengthen cooperation in the fight
to eradicate drug trafficking, which Rabat says is tightly linked to money
laundering, crime and ``terrorism.''

Last week, Moroccan Justice Minister Abderrahman Amalu said: ``In addition to
the new law extending jail terms of drug traffickers, a law against money
laundering is under way.''

Morocco is trying to find ways to end cultivation of an estimated 60,000
hectares (150,000 acres) of cannabis in the northern Rif mountainous
provinces through economic development, but Amalu said that to succeed it
needed European financial help.

Plumbly estimated Morocco's cannabis production at between 1,500 and 3,000
tonnes a year.