British authorities on Friday said they had found more than 12,500 pounds of cocaine hidden in a shipment of bananas, shattering the record for the biggest single seizure of hard drugs in the country.
The National Crime Agency said 5.7 tons of cocaine were found in a container of bananas at the port of Southampton on England’s south coast on Feb. 8. The haul of drugs had an estimated street value of $568 million, the agency said.
Before the massive bust, the previous largest seizures of drugs in the U.K. was a 3.7-ton haul of cocaine found in Southampton two years ago, and before that, 3.2 tons discovered on a tug boat in Scotland in 2015, the agency said.
The packages of cocaine found this month were concealed in a cargo of bananas which had been transported from South America, and officials believe the drugs were headed to Hamburg, Germany, “for onward delivery.”
I need to take more time when buying bananas at Costco
I manage a produce department for a living and I’m biding my time.
I mean, it has happened multiple times:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/04/more-than-15m-cocaine-bananas-berlin-aldi-supermarkets
https://www.newsweek.com/cocaine-shipment-worth-83-million-gets-delivered-supermarkets-mistake-1716319