Record-breaking 800kg of Colombian cocaine worth €108 million intercepted by Customs

Customs officials have managed to intercept a record-breaking 800kg of cocaine hidden in a 40-foot reefer container.

The cargo was en route from the port of Turbo, in Colombia, to the port of Mersin, in Turkey, with a refrigerated payload of 1,200 boxes of bananas.

Customs officials, together with members from the Malta Police drugs sqaud, who were called on scene, opened the reefer and started physically inspecting all the boxes and, subsequently, elevated 800 packets of a white substance hidden in 26 boxes which gave a positive indication for high-purity cocaine.

The packets carried a net weight of 1kg each and were concealed within the boxes of fruit. However, the difference in density and consistency was immediately flagged by the scanning officials

The seizure has been estimated at a record breaking €108.2 million.

The container was selected by the Customs Container Monitoring Unit after it received intelligence on the load. The container was then screened, along several other containers, by Customs officials stationed at the Scanning Facility and who flagged some discrepancies in the scan.