Greek authorities have made one of the biggest drug seizures ever in Greece after raiding a cargo ship in Piraeus and seizing 447 kilos of cocaine being smuggled from Latin America.
The Finance Ministry’s Special Investigations Service said that five suspects had also been arrested.
The five were a Greek national permanently residing in Belgium; a Bulgarian national, who had set up a company in Thessaloniki and was to take delivery of part of the cocaine shipment in a Bulgarian port on the Black Sea; a Greek customs broker who was responsible for clearing the container through customs; and two Greek women, one of which coordinated the customs clearance and cargo transport procedures.
The raid was carried out last month after a tip-off from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Attica prefecture narcotics and guns squad raided the shop said to be preparing to sail from Greece to Bulgaria.
They seized 400 packets of cocaine totalling 447 kilos of the drug hidden in a container stored within the hold of the ship in the port of Piraeus.
They also found and seized: 75,800 euros in cash, 3,214 U.S. dollars, 37 SIM cards from undeclared card cell-phones, a luxury jeep, and import documents for the containers, in the possession of the five detainees.
This is the biggest cocaine haul in Greece and one of the biggest in Europe, according to the Finance Ministry’s Special Investigations Service.