Russia said Wednesday it had seized 1,800 pounds of cocaine hidden under a shipment of bananas, calling it its largest bust of d.r.u.g.s from Latin America this year.
Russia’s customs service, working jointly with the FSB security service, said it had uncovered a batch worth “more than 12 billion rubles ($153 million)” stashed in banana containers.
It further stated that the cocaine packages, which were concealed in briquettes with the name of a high-end French fashion company, were found in a “secret cavity” beneath the bananas. The Russian Federal Customs Service posted pictures of the cocaine on social media and claimed that service dogs assisted in spotting the illicit substances.
Customs officials said they carried out the bust after a tip-off from “foreign colleagues about the intention of a South American criminal group to organize a smuggling channel for cocaine supplies to Russia.”
It said an investigation had been opened into large-scale d.r.u.g trafficking, a charge that in Russia carries maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Russia has a zero-tolerance policy toward d.r.u.g use and s.m.u.g.g.l.i.n.g, handing heavy sentences to those convicted of trafficking small amounts of narcotics – including foreigners.
The past two years, according to Russia’s Izvestia newspaper.
According to the report, d.r.u.g traffickers are increasingly considering the nation as a transit center, partly because the war in Ukraine has made the Ukrainian port of Odesa inaccessible.
Cocaine concealed in banana shipments
Cocaine has been found hidden in banana shipments across the globe in recent months.
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 d.r.u.g.s in the nation when they discovered over 12,500 pounds of cocaine concealed in a shipment of the fruit.
