Twenty-three tonnes of cocaine seized in Europe’s biggest haul

Authorities in Germany and Belgium have seized 23 tonnes of cocaine in a record haul of the drug in Europe, according to German customs officials.

The 28-year-old owner of an import company in Rotterdam was arrested in the Netherlands early on Wednesday and Dutch police searched two premises, one in the port city and another in a nearby village.

The drugs were all bound for the same destination in the Netherlands, Dutch police said. “The seized mega-shipments to the Netherlands together form an absolute record. Never before has so much cocaine been intercepted at once,” police said in a statement.

German officers discovered 16 tonnes of the drug hidden in containers from Paraguay at the port of Hamburg on 12 February, following a tipoff from a company based in the Netherlands.

Joint investigations led authorities to seize another 7.2 tonnes at the port of Antwerp in Belgium, German customs said.

The stash in Belgium was hidden in a container full of wooden blocks, investigators said.

“The find counts among the world’s top five,” the head of Hamburg’s customs office, Rene Matschke, said.

Customs officers at the busy Hamburg port took a closer look at the Paraguayan containers when they noticed “clear irregularities” with their contents. The tin cans that were meant to be filled with putty.

Ordering the containers unloaded, they found that “beyond a layer of genuine goods packed just behind the container door, numerous tin cans were in fact filled with other goods”.

Cocaine was found in more than 1,700 cans.

“We are estimating a street sales value of between €1.5bn and €3.5bn for the 16 tonnes,” Matschke said, depending on the extent to which the drug would have been cut with other substances.

An international law enforcement project implemented by the UN intercepted 102 tonnes of cocaine bound for Europe in 2020. The bulk of the cargo arrived at Antwerp, Europe’s second biggest port, where a record 65.5 tonnes were seized.

The drugs come from Latin America, principally Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador, and are usually found hidden in cargo containers.