The dutch public prosecutor announced this Thursday forfeiture of over eight tons of cocaine from Ecuador At the port of rotterdaman amount seized drug record at one of the main points of entry into Europe.
“On July 13, the customs services carried out the largest drug seizure ever made in the port of Rotterdam”the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The more than eight tons of cocaine have a value of about €600 million ($661 million)according to the statement.
Dutch police found the drugs in a container of bananas
“In total, they took out 8,064 one-kilo packages of cocaine from twelve banana pallets”indicated the prosecutor’s office, who also reported the destruction of the drug.
“Once again, we have managed (…) to deal a significant blow to the drug traffickers in the port,” said Peter van buijtenendirector of the customs service in rotterdamin a message shared by the account of the port on the social network X (new name of Twitter).
Dutch customs seized about 30,000 kilos of cocaine during the first semester of this year, an amount higher than the 22,000 kilos during the same period of 2022.
Most of the seizures made contained less than 100 kilos of drugs
Netherlands, Belgium and Spain represent the main gateways to cocaine europewhich usually reaches Old Continent from Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.
The announcement of this record seizure comes the day after the murder of Fernando Villavicencioone of the main candidates in the presidential elections of Ecuadorknown for his denunciation of corruption.
Villavicencio He had denounced last week that he himself and his campaign team had received threats from the head of a drug gang.
Source: Ambito
