Two members of Paris's elite anti-drugs brigade, including an officer, have been arrested on charges they stole cocaine seized in busts and replaced it with powdered plaster, a judicial source said Friday.

The officers were detained on Thursday after being taken in for questioning earlier this week, following an investigation launched in August 2021.

The ploy was discovered when a judge overseeing a trafficking investigation ordered a follow-up analysis of the seized cocaine, which showed that it was in fact white plaster powder, a common building material.

Details on how much cocaine was taken were not disclosed.

The theft recalled another officer plundering 48.5 kilogrammes (107 pounds) of cocaine from the high-security storeroom at the historic Paris police headquarters -- the 36 Quai des Orfevres made famous by the Maigret books by Belgian writer Georges Simenon.

Jonathan Guyot was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2017 after he was caught on videotape walking off with heavy bags of the drug three years earlier.

He denied the charges but did not appeal the sentence, and the cocaine with a street value of around two million euros at the time was never found.