Investigators have seized 23 tonnes of cocaine in a record haul of the drug in Europe, with a street value of billions of euros, German customs said on Wednesday.
The 28-year-old owner of an import company in Rotterdam was arrested early on Wednesday in the Netherlands over the illicit cargo, as Dutch police searched two premises — one in the port city and another in a nearby village.
The drugs intercepted were all bound for the “same destination in the Netherlands,” Dutch police said.
Photo: Reuters
“The seized mega shipments to the Netherlands together form an absolute record. Never before has so much cocaine been intercepted at once,” they said in a statement.
German officers had first discovered 16 tonnes of cocaine hidden in containers from Paraguay at the port of Hamburg on Feb. 12, following a tip from a company based in the Netherlands.
Joint investigations into the stash led authorities to swoop on another 7.2 tonnes of cocaine at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium, German customs said.
The stash in Belgium was hidden in a container full of wooden blocks, investigators said.
“The find counts among the world’s top five,” Hamburg customs office head Rene Matschke said.
Customs officers at the busy Port of Hamburg took a closer look at the Paraguayan containers as they noticed “clear irregularities” with its contents — tin cans that were meant to be filled with putty.
Ordering the containers unloaded, they found that “beyond a layer of genuine goods packed just behind the container door, numerous tin cans were in fact filled with other goods.”
In all, about 16 tonnes of cocaine were eventually found in more than 1,700 tin cans.
“We are estimating a street sales value of between 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion euros (US$1.8 billion to US$4.3 billion) for the 16 tonnes,” Matschke said, adding that the value would be higher if the drug was sold “cut” or diluted with other substances.
In all, 102 tonnes of cocaine headed for the European continent were last year intercepted by an international law enforcement project implemented by the UN.
The bulk of the cargo arrived at Europe’s second-biggest port, the Port of Antwerp, where an all-time record of 65.5 tonnes was seized last year.
The drugs come from Latin America — principally Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador — and are usually found hidden away in cargo containers offloaded from ships.
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