Greek anti-narcotics teams have seized 30 packages of cocaine hidden in a consignment of bananas on a container ship.
The Hellenic Coast Guard said the consignment seized on Monday, worth more than €1m ($1.1m), was found after the unidentified vessel arrived at the container terminal at Piraeus.
The cocaine had been hidden in a refrigerated container carrying a legal cargo of bananas loaded at an Ecuadorian port. Two additional containers were searched but no contraband was found.
The seizure of the 34 kg of drugs was based on information provided by US authorities, the coastguard said.
Drug gangs have previously tried to conceal much larger quantities of drugs within banana shipments.
A criminal organisation with “great logistics capacity” and operating through a banana company in Ecuador was behind a 9.5-tonne cocaine shipment seized from a refrigerated container at the port of Algeciras in August last year, according to Spanish police.
The drugs were hidden in boxes of bananas and had 30 different logos that police believe represented different groups that were to receive the shipment.
Officials said the network could move 40 containers of bananas per month.
The UK secured its largest-ever drugs bust at a UK port in February when officers found 5.7 tonnes of cocaine at the south coast port of Southampton.
Those bananas had been shipped from the port of Turbo, Colombia, to Southampton, according to the Colombia Drug Smuggling Report 2024 by A&A Multiprime.
The haul was then expected to be taken to Hamburg in Germany for distribution.
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