The UK has managed to bust a gigantic haul of cocaine, even though the smugglers deployed an incredibly complex operational system to avoid detection.
Border Force officers seized £256 million of the white stuff, which makes it the sixth biggest seizure of cocaine to date.
The whole thing unfolded at London Gateway Port, where Border Security Command Maritime officers took down the three-tonne shipment on 27 February.
According to the UK Home Office, this latest bust marks the country having detected five-tonnes of cocaine in less than a month, which equates to around £400 million.
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This time, it was from a shipment that came from Panama and heading for the Netherlands.
Unfortunately for the criminals, who had deployed a bizarre way of trying to conceal the packages, security managed to crack the stash before it could be shipped off elsewhere.
The Home Office revealed in a post on X that the smugglers had attempted to use banana boxes to hide the drugs.
Its post read: “Border Force seized around five tonnes of cocaine at London Gateway in under a month, estimated to be worth over £400 million. Criminal gangs attempted to evade detection by concealing drugs in a banana shipment and on a vat of South American wine.”
However, further information reported by the HO went on to detail just how far the smugglers went to avoid getting caught.
In a statement per CP24, it said: “The smugglers had gone to extreme lengths to avoid detection -- trying to replicate the exact shape and weight of banana boxes to conceal the drugs inside, among fruit in a single shipping container.”
But 2,800 packages of cocaine were discovered after being scanned via high tech scanners.
However, this wasn’t the last seizure to occur as an £80 million drop was found, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
The NCA revealed to the BBC that officers discovered about a tonne of cocaine at the London Gateway port on 20 March, with the drugs packaged with ceramics and kitchenware.
This too was travelling from Panama, but this time it was to Norway.
NCA senior investigating officer Paul Orchard said: "Taking this amount of cocaine out of circulation will have deprived the organised criminals involved of millions in profits."
He said the find was "a fantastic seizure by our colleagues at Border Force", adding: "At this point we don't believe the UK was the end destination for this consignment, but we are working with international partners to identify the routing and target those involved.
"Those investigations continue."
Britt Jones