[imagesource: Reuters]

Drug smugglers get points for creativity when moving product between countries, but in the case of a massive shipment of cocaine seized earlier this month in Germany, and then in Belgium, their methods weren’t creative enough.

In the northern German city of Hamburg, the drugs were hidden in tins of wall filler, which had entered Europe on a container ship from Paraguay.

Customs officers noticed “clear irregularities” with some of the contents and decided to take a closer look.

Per the BBC, “beyond a layer of genuine goods, packed just behind the container door, numerous tin cans were in fact filled with other goods,” officials said.

Image: Reuters

The ‘other goods’ in the 1 700 suspicious tins turned out to be a combined 16 tonnes of cocaine.

“This is the largest amount of cocaine ever seized in Europe and one of the largest single seizures worldwide,” German customs said, referring to the Hamburg haul alone.

Image: Reuters

“We are estimating a street sales value of between €1.5bn and €3.5bn ($1.8bn and $4.2bn) for the 16 tonnes,” Hamburg customs official Rene Matschke told AFP news agency.

Paraguay has been a transit country for drugs for years, now.

Image: Reuters

Drug trafficking gangs in Brazil, such as the First Capital Command, have expanded operations across the border into Paraguay where they are running several of their drug operations. The drugs are usually shipped to port cities in Europe in containers.

After the bust in Hamburg, German authorities notified police in the Netherlands and a further 7,2 tonnes of cocaine was seized at the Belgian port of Antwerp.

In Antwerp, the drug was hidden in a container filled with wooden blocks from Panama.

The Netherlands was also recently in the news after two smugglers tried to take cocaine back to England on a jet ski, which ran out of petrol and left them stranded. They were busted by the team sent in to rescue them.

They were only carrying two kilograms of the stuff.

It doesn’t even come close.

[source:bbc]