Cocaine Worth £40m Hidden Among Bananas

The 300kg stash of the Class A drug is found on a shipment of fruit from Colombia which made it as far as Portsmouth.

Some of the drug packets found on the vessel

Cocaine with a street value of £40m has been found in a shipment of bananas in an operation by UK and Irish authorities.

The 300kg of the Class A drug was discovered following a search of the cargo vessel Star Stratos at Portsmouth, Hampshire.
It had travelled from Colombia.
Investigations are continuing after Monday's operation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Border Force, who were working with Irish police.

Drugs were found among crates of bananas

Tom Dowdall, deputy director of the NCA's border policing command, said: "Working with our law enforcement partners in the UK and Ireland we have successfully prevented a huge quantity of what is likely to be very high purity cocaine reaching our streets.
"This seizure once again demonstrates the international reach of the NCA and the impact we are having on the criminal networks involved in drug trafficking."
In September, around a tonne of cocaine was seized by Ireland's Naval Service from the yacht Makayabella around 480km (300 miles) off the southwest coast of Ireland in a joint operation with the NCA