ARCHIVED - Madrid police seize 800 kilos of cocaine found hidden in frozen pineapples
The Spanish National Police reported that the drugs found in Madrid had travelled from Brazil concealed inside a shipment of pineapple.
Police in Madrid have confiscated 800 kilos of cocaine found hidden inside a batch of frozen pineapple flesh from Brazil that arrived at a clandestine laboratory in Robledo de Chavela, Madrid.
Two individuals have been arrested, and 10,000 euros in cash and two new vehicles confiscated together with the cocaine.
Officers had been working on the case since 2018 when they heard of an operation in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, during which police seized 216 kilos of cocaine hidden in a container-load of coffee headed for Spain.
Investigators discovered that a company that imported and sold legal products such as coffee, beverages and fruit from South America was also using the containers to ship drugs.
Since investigations began, several major detentions of drugs have "borne fruit" for the investigators, concealed in various foodstuffs, with bananas and pineapples popular choices; these are not routinely searched due to the huge volume of containers passing through the port every day.
Although it is known that shipping containers are an increasingly popular choice for those shipping drugs into Spain, were customs and police to routinely open and check every shipping container carrying produce, this would cause such huge backlogs that tons of food would be wasted, with containers piling up in the port for days.
So instead, investigations have focused on the containers involved in the operations of companies identified by surveillance and investigations in the country of origin as being potentially involved in illicit shipments, monitoring and inspecting their containers.
One such container, which had arrived at Valencia port carrying 14,400 kilos of frozen pineapple flesh, was subjected to analysis and inspections revealed 800 kilos of cocaine concealed inside some of the fruit.
The drugs had undergone a complex chemical process which made them virtually undetectable in customs checks, the police explained.
The container was allowed to proceed through customs and then tracked to its final destination in order to apprehend those receiving and then processing, the drugs.