One investigator couldn’t resist a bit of ridicule after the record drug find: “The fact that we found 500 kilograms of coke here in Würzburg and in Bamberg is definitely going to piss off the dealers.” In a grocery store in the city of Würzburg, the police had discovered 17 packages of cocaine each weighing one kilogram – according to the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office, the drugs were hidden in boxes full of bananas.
The value of the find is even higher than initially assumed. According to figures from the Federal Statistical Office, this editorial team assumed a market value of 17 million euros for the total of 500 kilograms of drugs found. However, there is “a certain North-South divide” in wholesale prices for cocaine, said a spokesman for the LKA in Munich on Wednesday when asked. He estimated the value of the confiscated cocaine at 25 million euros.
But the current find in the Würzburg grocery store is not the only case of this kind in the region: Because now the previously kept secret find of an even larger amount of drugs at a fruit and vegetable dealer in the Main-Spessart district has become known. A spokesman for the LKA confirmed information from this editorial office: In a banana warehouse in Marktheidenfeld, 60 kilograms of cocaine were even discovered at the end of November.
Warehouse worker had diverted eight kilograms of cocaine for himself
It was an accidental find “due to stupidity”, as the LKA spokesman confirms. A warehouse worker discovered the prohibited goods. The Würzburg public prosecutor suspects him of having diverted eight kilograms of cocaine in order to sell them on his own account. But out of fear, the man brought the drugs back after the weekend. Bad luck: colleagues had found the rest in the meantime. Drug investigators confiscated 60 kilograms of cocaine (wholesale value: around three million euros).
The warehouse worker from the district of Main-Spessart, who stole the dealers, is the only one who has to answer for this find. According to the LKA, the true backers of the smuggling operation are still unknown. “He lost his job and of course the crowd is exorbitant by local standards,” said his defense attorney Norman Jacob junior when asked. However, he hopes for a merciful court, which takes into account that his client has returned the goods. “That’s very unusual.”
Boxes of drugs were marked with a skull and crossbones
Large amounts of cocaine had already been discovered in Hesse in 2019 and in several Bavarian supermarkets of the same chain as in Würzburg in 2017. Two discounters have also become involuntary helpers of the drug smugglers. In a large-scale lawsuit in Munich involving over 800 kilograms of cocaine in banana crates in markets in southern Bavaria, the drug dealers hired Albanian burglars to collect the drugs. In the Marktheidenfeld case, the boxes containing the prohibited goods were marked with a skull and crossbones.
“Obviously something went wrong with the perpetrators,” said the LKA spokesman. “Otherwise they would have fetched it beforehand.” The investigators registered eight burglaries in ripening halls in Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland that matched this case.
Were the drugs a “misdelivery” to the Würzburg supermarket?
In the case from southern Bavaria, the trail of cocaine could be traced back to Ecuador in South America. The origin of the current find in Würzburg could be the same, said the LKA spokesman. However, more details are still unclear.
Alarming reports from the United Nations (UNO) have shown since 2017 that cocaine cultivation in South America is increasing vehemently. This also leads to ever larger deliveries to Europe. According to the LKA, the investigators in the Würzburg case assume “a wrong delivery” that ended up in the supermarkets by mistake – instead of with the criminal buyers of the dealers.
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