PARIS, France: French Customs officers found more than 1.1 tonnes of cocaine – worth millions on the street – while inspecting a truck carrying potting soil, authorities said on Friday, as reported by German Press Agency (dpa).
The officials stopped the lorry, which was travelling from Portugal to the Netherlands, at a motorway toll station in Vienne, south of Lyon.
They found drugs with a market value of €75.5 million (approx. RM385.05 million) while inspecting 26 large sacks of potting soil, after spotting irregularities in the sacks at the rear of the truck.
The entire load was then emptied, and officials searched through the soil using an excavator and discovered 998 packets of cocaine.
The lorry’s three occupants were arrested and brought before a magistrate.
The discovery is the latest in a growing trend in which increasing quantities of cocaine are being smuggled into Europe through Portugal, Spain and France in what police are calling a “white tsunami” of the drug. – BERNAMA-dpa
