Massive cocaine accommodation found hidden in the shipment of banana, again

The employees of a Norwegian fruit distributor were stunned when they discovered a cocaine package in a bananas box, alerting customs officials who found a stash of 147 kilos, they said on Monday. The seizure marked the latest in a series of incidents that involve cocaine that is hidden in a shipment containing the fruit.

It is believed that the route, which is located in nine bananas boxes on April 3, has a value of the street of 170 million zero ($ 16.4 million) and is the largest in the Scandinavian country since 2023, when a total of 2.3 tons were found, said the Norwegian custom in a statement.

A dozen bananas palettes had recently reached the warehouse and were being inspected with scanning equipment, and the scanned image “showed irregularities in some of the boxes in the pallet,” authorities said, noting that customs officers also carried out a dog search.

The drugs were smuggled by the sea from South America and then in a trailer through Sweden, although they were probably not intended for the Norwegian market.

“There is concrete information that suggests that cocaine should be collected in the port of Antwerp, based on information through international cooperation with the Europoles and Belgian authorities,” the statement said.

Customs official Tim Gurrik said a large criminal network was probably behind the smuggling attempt.

“An seizure of such magnitude requires a lot of financial and organizational muscle that only the largest criminal networks have the ability to carry out,” he said.

“We see that criminal networks behind smuggling are willing to assume risks and are adaptable.”

Cocaine has been hidden in banana shipments many times worldwide in recent months.

Last December, the authorities of the Dominican Republic confiscated Almost 9.5 tons of cocaine From a banana shipment in the most important sea port in the country.

In August 2024, customs agents seized more than 200 pounds of cocaine In the port of Greece from a ship that carries the fruit. The previous month, police dogs in Ecuador helped find More than six tons of cocaine Hidden in a banana shipment he went to Germany.

In March last year, Bulgarian customs officials confiscated about 170 kilograms of cocaine from a ship carrying bananas from Ecuador.

The previous month, the British authorities said they found More than 12,500 pounds of cocaine hidden in a fruit shipment, breaking the record of the largest seizure of hard drugs in the country.

In August 2023, customs agents in the Netherlands seized 17,600 pounds of cocaine Found inside the bananas boxes in the port of Rotterdam. Three months before that, a police dog found 3 tons of cocaine Hidden in a bananas case in the Italian port of Gioia Tauro.

In:
• Norway
• Cocaine