Crime
Over 2700kg Of Cocaine Discovered By Police Sniff Dog Hidden In Banana Shipment
According to Italian authorities, customs officials discovered more than 2,700 kilos (or nearly 3 tons) of cocaine concealed in 70 tons of packed bananas imported from Ecuador.
Police calculated that if the cocaine had made it to Armenia, where it was intended to be sold, it might have brought traffickers more than 800 million euros ($900 million) in street sales.
Two containers aboard a cargo ship that had recently docked at the port of Gioia Tauro, a ‘ndrangheta stronghold near the “toe” of the Italian peninsula, raised suspicions among customs authorities.
Police told Italian state radio that documents and a background check indicated the shippers of the bananas weren’t in the business of moving that much fruit.
Officers used scanning machines and the dog, named Joel, to uncover packets of cocaine hidden in boxes stacked meters-high in container trucks.
Joel leaped high and eagerly when the officers opened the back doors of the truck, and furiously hit the unloaded boxes with his paws to try to move the bananas aside, police recounted.
Of the drugs were not detected, the containers with the cocaine would have continued through the Mediterranean to a Black Sea port in Georgia for eventual transport to Armenia, authorities said.
The Gioia Tauro port, one of Italy’s busiest, has long been under the watch of anti-Mafia investigators because of its proximity to towns where the ‘ndrangheta has bases. The crime clan is one of the world’s most powerful cocaine traffickers.
Since the start of 2021, and including the latest seizure, customs police at the port have intercepted and seized a total of 37 tons of cocaine, the police said.
