Accusation
ANNOUNCEMENTS•
Customs officials intercepted more than 4,700 kilos of cocaine in the port of Rotterdam between December 24 and January 4. The drug had been smuggled into the Netherlands from Chile and Ecuador, among others.
In total, 34 people were arrested during the checks, including a 16-year-old, reports the public prosecutor’s office. Not all suspects had drugs on them. Some are suspected of being ‘thieves’: people, often children, who are hired by (international) criminal organizations to extract smuggled drugs from shipping containers.
Hidden in shoes
The first arrests were on Christmas Eve. Customs officials then saw someone with two “full sports bags” exiting the port area and entering a car. When they checked the car, they found 35 kilograms of cocaine in the back seat.
On the same night, parcels of drugs were also found in a container of frozen fruit juices from Brazil and in a container of bananas from Ecuador.
The largest amount of the drug was found on Tuesday on a large seagoing vessel from South America, which turned out to be carrying three containers of cocaine. One of the containers contained 1701 kilos of cocaine, hidden among a large load of shoes.
Hundreds of millions
According to the prosecutor’s office, the seized drug has a street value of 354 million euros. All resources have been destroyed.
How is it possible that record quantities of cocaine continue to arrive in the port of Rotterdam? NOS out of 3 got it:
