More than half a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine was seized by Italian authorities in a raid on a Turkish-owned cargo vessel sailing under the Maltese flag.
Authorities discovered two tonnes of cocaine worth more than $560 million hidden aboard the Malta-registered container vessel Mersin Express in a raid at the port of Livorno last month, but the incident was only recently made public.
Italy’s financial police unit the Guardia di Finanza and the country’s Customs and Monopolies Agency, Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), said they seized 1,800 blocks of “pure cocaine” hidden in cocoa powder during the operation.
There is no suggestion the company operating the vessel was aware of the presence of the drugs, with the cache instead thought to have been smuggled onboard by a South American cartel, according to local media reports.
The outlets said the container ship arrived in Livorno in March after departing from Guayaquil in Ecuador, stopping at the Panamanian port of Colón, Cartagena in Colombia, the Spanish ports of Vigo, Malaga and Valencia and Genoa in Italy.
The haul was destroyed at an incinerator in Tuscany. At the time of going to print, the vessel – which was built in 2017 and has a carrying capacity of some 37,000 tonnes – was located off the coast of Columbia on route to Vigo, Spain.
This is not the first time the Turkish company – which was not named – appears to have been targeted by smugglers.
Maritime news outlet The Maritime Executive said the company’s Izmit Express container ship had reported “suspicious packets” in hard-to-reach areas of the vessel upon reaching Spain in November. Spanish authorities then found some 500kg of cocaine hidden inside banana containers.
Cocaine is the second most popular illegal drug in Europe, according to the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), which said that in 2022 – for the sixth year in a row – a “record amount” of cocaine was seized by EU countries, amounting to 323 tonnes.