{"id":950538,"date":"2026-07-21T22:27:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/950538\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:27:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:27:27","slug":"cocaine-worth-285-million-found-hidden-in-banana-shipment-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/950538\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocaine worth $285 million found hidden in banana shipment in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian police on Tuesday said they seized pure cocaine with an estimated street value of $286 million that was hidden inside containers of bananas at a port in northwest Italy. It marks the latest instance of the illicit drug being concealed <\/a>in a shipment of the tropical fruit.<\/p>\n

Some 1,700 pounds of cocaine was concealed in a refrigerated container from Ecuador among dozens of pallets of bananas found at the port of Vado Ligure, police said in a statement<\/a>. Authorities released a video<\/a> showing officers pulling the alleged drugs from the banana shipment.<\/p>\n

Following a previous drug seizure at the same port, authorities have increased monitoring of Vado Ligure as a potential transit point for international trafficking.<\/p>\n

Investigators said the port’s role as a growing European trade hub also makes it an attractive target for criminal networks involved in illicit activities.<\/p>\n

\"bananas-screenshot-2026-07-21-130345.png<\/p>\n

Italian police on Tuesday said they seized about 1,700 pounds of cocaine hidden inside containers of bananas at a port in northwest Italy.<\/p>\n

Guardia di Finanza<\/p>\n

Police earlier this month seized 340 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of 120 million euros in the same port.<\/p>\n

Bananas frequently used to hide cocaine<\/p>\n

Cocaine has been found inside shipments of bananas around the world. In March, three people were charged<\/a> in the United Kingdom after they allegedly attempted to traffic nearly $100 million worth of cocaine in a shipment of the fruit.<\/p>\n

Last August, Greek police said they seized nearly 600 pounds of cocaine<\/a> hidden inside a container of bananas imported from Ecuador.<\/p>\n

In July 2025, Russia said it seized 1,800 pounds of cocaine hidden under a shipment of bananas. Two months before that, employees at a Norwegian fruit distributor discovered a packet of cocaine in a box of bananas, alerting customs officials who found a\u00a0stash of 147 kilos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In December 2024, authorities in the Dominican Republic confiscated\u00a0nearly 9.5 tons of cocaine<\/a>\u00a0from a banana shipment at the country’s most important seaport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In August 2024, customs agents seized more than\u00a0200 pounds of cocaine<\/a>\u00a0at the port in Greece from a ship carrying the fruit. The month before that, police dogs in Ecuador helped find\u00a0more than six tons of cocaine<\/a>\u00a0hidden in a banana shipment headed to Germany.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian police on Tuesday said they seized pure cocaine with an estimated street value of $286 million that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":950539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[79726,2219,50,103],"class_list":["post-950538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-cocaine","tag-italy","tag-news","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116960327811576375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}