INDEPENDENT
An Australian Olympic field hockey player is being held by police in Paris accused of buying cocaine from a street dealer.
Tom Craig, 28, was allegedly caught buying a gram of the drug from a 17-year-old dealer, who was said by police to have been carrying a range of drugs also including ketamine, ecstasy, methedrone and MDMA, the French daily Libération reported.
The incident happened on Tuesday night at the bottom of a building in the Pigalle neighborhood of northern Paris, famed for its nightlife and red-light district. The young dealer had reportedly been under the surveillance of police, who swooped in to arrest both men.
Craig was part of the highly fancied Kookaburras team that lost 2-0 to the Netherlands in the quarterfinals on Sunday, meaning he was no longer up for drugs testing in Paris.
His arrest, shortly after midnight on Tuesday, came soon he left a Kookaburras team event in Paris. Cocaine is officially proscribed as a performance-enhancing drug, as well as being illegal in France.
