Cocaine find in banana shipments
July 31, 2015
German authorities announced Friday that some 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of cocaine had been found hidden inside shipments of bananas sent to various supermarkets in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.
A press officer for the State Office of Criminal Investigation in Lower Saxony said Friday that supermarket staff in Brunswick found several packages of the prohibited substance on Wednesday, with five further supermarket shipments also found to contain packages of cocaine.
Thousands of boxes of fruit imported to Germany with the same wholesale shipment from South America are being searched by officials.
Berlin police discovered more than 386 kilograms of cocaine inside banana boxes at a discount supermarket chain in May, in what they said at the time was the largest-ever confiscation of the drug in the capital.
Authorities say the market value of this week's find is around 15 million euros ($16.45 million).
jlw/mg (dpa, AP)