530kg of Cocaine Found Hidden in Banana Shipment at Italian Port
Italian police seized roughly 1,700 lbs of cocaine worth $286M hidden in bananas at Vado Ligure. It follows a 340kg bust at the same port earlier this month.
Cocaine worth $286 million concealed in banana pallets at Vado Ligure
Italian police announced Tuesday the seizure of approximately 1,700 pounds of pure cocaine hidden inside a refrigerated container of bananas at the port of Vado Ligure in northwest Italy, cbsnews.com reports. Authorities estimate the street value of the haul at $286 million.
Officers found the drugs concealed among dozens of pallets of bananas that arrived from Ecuador. Police released video footage showing officers extracting the alleged narcotics from within the fruit shipment.
The bust follows a previous seizure at the same location earlier this month, when authorities confiscated 340 kilograms of cocaine — valued at approximately 120 million euros — from the same port. Following that earlier operation, law enforcement stepped up monitoring of Vado Ligure, which investigators describe as a growing European trade hub and an increasingly attractive transit point for international trafficking networks.
The concealment of cocaine inside banana shipments has become a recurring method for drug traffickers worldwide. In March, three people were charged in the United Kingdom after allegedly attempting to smuggle nearly $100 million worth of cocaine hidden in a consignment of the fruit. Last August, Greek police recovered close to 600 pounds of cocaine from a banana container imported from Ecuador.
More recently, Russian authorities said in July 2025 they seized 1,800 pounds of cocaine found beneath a banana shipment. Two months prior, employees at a Norwegian fruit distributor discovered a packet of cocaine in a box of bananas, prompting customs officials to uncover a stash of 147 kilograms.
In December 2024, authorities in the Dominican Republic confiscated nearly 9.5 tons of cocaine from a banana shipment at the country's largest seaport. The month before that, Ecuadorian police dogs helped locate more than six tons of cocaine in a banana shipment bound for Germany, while Greek customs agents separately seized over 200 pounds from a fruit-carrying vessel in August 2024.
Source: Google News DM — Crime