In the last week of last year and in the first days of this year, during checks in the port of Rotterdam, 34 people were arrested and 4,726 kilos of cocaine intercepted.
According to the public prosecutor’s office (OM), the drug had a street value of 354 million euros. Cocaine has since been destroyed. The pre-trial detention of eight suspects has now been extended following their arrest, the OM reports. Among them is also a sixteen-year-old suspect.
The day before Christmas, a man was caught with 35 kilos of cocaine in the back seat of his car during a checkup. Customs officers had earlier seen him exit the port area with two sports bags.
Three days later, a total of 1121 kilograms of cocaine was discovered in a container of frozen fruit juice from Brazil and a container of bananas from Ecuador. A further 540 kilograms of cocaine were seized on New Year’s Day and six people were arrested.
On a ship from South America, 350 kilos of cocaine were discovered on January 3 in a container with bananas from Ecuador. On the same day, customs officers from the same ship found 949 kilos of cocaine in a container from Chile. Another 1,701 kilos of cocaine were found among a load of shoes, also from Chile.
