Spain finds €10 million worth of cocaine in banana shipment from Costa Rica

SPANISH authorities confirmed on Thursday October 1 that 300 kilos of cocaine worth 10 million euros was seized from a container of pureed bananas that arrived from Costa Rica.

The discovery was made on Monday in the Mediterranean port of Valencia by police and customs officers according to a government tax office spokesman.

He went on to say that there were 300 bricks of high quality cocaine in the container and each had a label with the word ‘éxito’ (‘success’) on it.

Spanish authorities have been investigating the origin of the cocaine, which arrived on September 26 on a boat that left from Puerto Moin just east of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.

Spain’s close ties with its former colonies in Latin America have made it the main entry point used by drug smugglers to bring cocaine to Europe.

The record amount of cocaine seized in a single year in Spain was set in 2005, when authorities confiscated just less than 50 tonnes of the drug.