Customs investigators seized more than 360 kilograms of cocaine in the port of Hamburg in November. The drug was hidden in refrigerated containers with fruit from Central and South America in quantities of 30 to 50 kilos each, the customs investigation office announced on Thursday.
Hamburg – The street sales value would have been more than 40 million euros.
The cocaine was discovered behind the maintenance hatches of the refrigerated containers. The official cargo consisted mainly of grapes from Peru. The customs investigators selected the containers for a control after a risk analysis. The steel boxes were screened in a test system with the latest X-ray technology.
Last February, customs in Hamburg discovered 16 tons of cocaine in containers from Paraguay. It was the largest amount of cocaine ever seized in Europe, it said. A man was arrested near Rotterdam in the Netherlands in connection with the find and the seizure of a further 7.2 tonnes of the drug in Antwerp (Belgium). “The investigations are ongoing,” said the spokesman for the Hamburg customs investigation office, Stephan Meyns, on Thursday. dpa
