During an operation in the Mediterranean, the Italian financial police found packages containing more than 5.3 tons of cocaine and an estimated market value of around 850 million euros. Five people were also arrested in the large-scale operation off the southwest coast of Sicily, the financial police reported on Thursday evening.
It would be the largest cocaine seizure ever carried out on Italian territory.
The detectives succeeded in attacking the international drug trade with an extraordinary operation. During reconnaissance flights, the airborne forces noticed a fishing trawler conspicuously approaching a merchant vessel they had been observing in the waters for several days. The fishing boat was cast off the coast of Calabria, the financial police said in a statement.
Early Wednesday morning, investigators then watched as numerous packages were brought onto the merchant ship’s deck and promptly thrown into the water as the fishing trawler approached, to be picked up by the smaller boat’s crew. The subsequent entry by the financial police found the large amount of drugs – two Tunisians, an Italian, a French and an Albanian were arrested. The merchant ship was escorted by the navy to the port of Palermo (Sicily).
Time and time again there are sometimes spectacular drug discoveries in the Mediterranean. In recent months, the Italian financial police have repeatedly succeeded in seizing tons of drugs.
Source: Krone
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