Authorities within the Dominican Republican say cocaine found within the nation’s largest-ever seizure was headed to Europe.
Hidden in a banana cargo, officers discovered 9,500kg of the drug at a port within the capital, Santo Domingo.
The cocaine was hidden in 320 luggage with an estimated avenue worth of $250 million (£196 million).
At least 10 individuals linked to the port are below investigation with early investigations exhibiting the bananas had arrived from Guatemala, in keeping with the National Drug Control Directorate.
Communications chief Carlos Denvers mentioned: “Many unknown people tried to switch the medicine to a different container that may be shipped on a vessel to Belgium.”
The haul far exceeds the two,580kg seizure made by Dominican authorities on the similar port in 2006.
Monitoring businesses have reported that the Caribbean is resurfacing as a serious drug trafficking route from Colombia to Europe.
A report final yr discovered the usage of cocaine is rising in a number of western European nations together with the UK, Belgium, France and Spain.
Europe accounted for 21% of the world’s cocaine customers in 2020, in keeping with a United Nations report.
Evidence suggests use of the drug is bringing dire well being penalties, with latest information exhibiting drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales hit the very best degree in 30 years, fuelled by a 30% rise in fatalities involving cocaine.
