Italian police seized 2,700 kilograms of high-purity cocaine hidden in two refrigerated containers containing a shipment of bananas from Ecuador.
The Italian police’s financial crimes unit said in a statement that the value of the drugs seized in the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria exceeds 800 million Euros ($880 million). The shipment came from Guayaquil in Ecuador and its final destination was Armenia via the Black Sea port of Batumi in Georgia, reports Al-Rai daily quoting Reuters.
The police added that the drugs were discovered in the two containers, which are 12 meters long, thanks to specialized scanners and the help of a sniffer dog named Joel.
The police said that they had found another 600 kilograms of cocaine in the past few days in containers of fruit coming from Ecuador and being shipped via Joya Tauro, pointing out that these shipments were destined for other regions in Italy, Croatia, Greece and Georgia.
The ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which replaced the Cosa Nostra gang in Sicily, is based in Calabria as the most powerful mafia organization in Italy and plays a pivotal role in the drug trade.
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