In Marseille, an undercover police detective is following Alain Charnier, a wealthy French criminal who runs the largest heroin-smuggling syndicate in the world. The policeman is assassinated by Charnier's hitman, Pierre Nicoli. Charnier plans to smuggle $32 million worth of heroin into the United States by hiding it in the car of his unsuspecting friend, French television personality Henri Devereaux, who is traveling to New York by ship.