Greek police said Sunday they seized nearly 600 pounds of cocaine with an estimated value of over $6.5 million. The cocaine was hidden inside a container of bananas imported from Ecuador, they said, marking yet another instance of drugs being found concealed in the fruit.
Police had been informed by the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency that the cocaine would be carried by a ship headed to the northern Greek port of Thessaloniki.
Three men were arrested, officials said.
Police officers found the cocaine and removed most of the drugs contained in brick-sized packages from the container before it was loaded into a truck.
A brief video of the removal operation was made public by the police, which showed bricks dropping from a container that the officers had opened. Authorities also made pictures of the alleged drugs public, including dozens of bricks bearing the word “Diesel.”
The truck headed for the Athens suburb of Aspropyrgos, more than 300 miles to the south, where the police arrested three men as they opened the container Saturday.
The total amount of cocaine seized was 598 pounds, police said.
According to police, the individuals who were detained are a 47-year-old Bulgarian, a 32-year-old Bulgarian, a 40-year-old haulage company owner, and two Greeks. The Bulgarian was involved with a drug gang and arranged for the container to be picked up and transported. The 32-year-old was in charge of using anonymous gang members to distribute the drug.
Police are looking for more people they say belong to a drug distribution gang. The three arrested men will face a prosecutor Monday.
Bananas frequently used to hide cocaine
Cocaine has been found hidden in banana shipments across the globe in recent months.
In July, Russia said it seized 1,800 pounds of cocaine hidden under a shipment of bananas, calling it its largest bust of drugs from Latin America this year.
Customs officers uncovered a 147-kilogram cocaine stash after workers at a Norwegian fruit wholesaler in May detected a sachet of cocaine in a package of bananas.
Nearly 9.5 tons of cocaine were seized by Dominican Republic officials last December from a banana cargo at the nation’s main harbor.
At the port in Greece, customs officers confiscated almost 200 pounds of cocaine from a ship that was transporting the fruit in August 2024. The previous month, Ecuadorian police dogs assisted in the discovery of over six tons of cocaine concealed in a cargo of bananas bound for Germany.
About 170 kilograms of cocaine were seized by Bulgarian customs officers in March of last year on a ship carrying bananas from Ecuador.
The previous month, British authorities claimed to have broken the record for the largest single seizure of hard drugs in the nation when they discovered over 12,500 pounds of cocaine concealed in a shipment of the fruit.
