If the cocaine had reached its final destination in Armenia, police estimated that it could have brought traffickers more than 800 million euros ($900 million) in street sales.
Customs police became suspicious about
two containers on a cargo ship that recently arrived at the port of
Gioia Tauro, in the “toe” of the Italian peninsula and a stronghold of a
‘ndrangheta organized crime clan.
Police
told Italian state radio that documents and a background check
indicated the shippers of the bananas weren't in the business of moving
that much fruit.
Officers
used scanning machines and the dog, named Joel, to uncover packets of
cocaine hidden in boxes stacked meters-high in container trucks.
Joel
leaped high and eagerly when the officers opened the back doors of the
truck, and furiously hit the unloaded boxes with his paws to try to move
the bananas aside, police recounted.
Of the drugs were not detected, the containers with the cocaine would have continued through the Mediterranean to a Black Sea port in Georgia for eventual transport to Armenia, authorities said.
The Gioia Tauro port,
one of Italy's busiest, has long been under the watch of anti-Mafia
investigators because of its proximity to towns where the ‘ndrangheta
has bases. The crime clan is one of the world’s most powerful cocaine
traffickers.
Since the start of 2021, and including the latest seizure, customs police at the port have intercepted and seized a total of 37 tons of cocaine, the police said.
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