Netherlands customs agents seized 17,600 pounds of cocaine hidden inside crates of bananas – the largest haul ever collected in Rotterdam’s port, authorities said Thursday.
Dogs sniffed the cocaine inside 12 pallets of bananas, and customs officials scanned the container to confirm the drugs on July 13. Agents were able to pull the cocaine from the pallets, authorities said, but didn’t release the information to the public because of the investigation surrounding the shipment.
The drugs were shipped from Ecuador via Panama to Rotterdam and are worth around $660 million, Rotterdam’s public prosecutor’s office said in a news statement.
Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe and in the first six months of 2023, more than 220 million tons were processed through its terminals, according to statistics kept by the port. During recent years the Port of Rotterdam has struggled as organized crime has smuggled cocaine and drugs in massive shipments.
Since 2017, record quantities of cocaine have been seized in Europe– in particular in Dutch, Belgian and Spanish ports, according to statistics analyzed by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Ports in these countries account for more than 70% of cocaine seized in Europe, and corruption, particularly in maritime routes has been identified as a key threat, according to the center.
In February, Rotterdam and Antwerp seaports and five multinational shipping companies announced they were instituting smart containers, with alarm capabilities, and enhanced employee screening in an effort to cut down on smuggling. The two countries were also going to exchange information and develop “international security standards to combat crime and global drug smuggling.”
“The record seizures in the harbors of Rotterdam and Antwerp are illustrative of the size of the drug smuggling problem in both countries,” Netherlands Benefits and Customs State Secretary Aukje De Vries said in a statement. He said the two countries are working closely together to “obtain and study radiographic images from Latin America.”
In 2022, the Netherlands announced it would spend more than $30 million to fight drug trafficking. The funding will also be used to hire customs officers to work with customs officers in transit countries, mainly in Latin America. Dutch customs officers will view and analyze container scans in an effort to identify drug sources.
