Divers in Poland found greater than 220 kilos of cocaine on the underside of the Baltic Sea, the nation’s border guard stated on Tuesday, marking the newest uncommon location that medicine have been present in Europe.
Officers with the Border Guard Maritime Unit situated the cocaine on the seabed within the Gulf of Gdansk in northern Poland, officers stated in a information launch. Seven folks had been detained and the border guard stated it had “dismantled an organized crime group concerned in smuggling important quantities of medicine.”
Authorities launched a number of photographs of the operation and stated the seized medicine had an estimated avenue worth of $15 million. A video launched by the border guard exhibits divers discovering the alleged medicine on the seabed as effectively footage of armed officers making a number of arrests at varied places.
Officers stated monitoring down the suspects led to the invention of one other giant amount of medicine. The seven folks detained resist 20 years in jail if convicted, authorities stated.
The invention stemmed from a joint operation by the Polish border guard, Europol and the DEA to guard essential underwater infrastructure within the area, authorities stated. In December, NATO introduced that it might enhance patrols within the Baltic Sea after a number of reported incidents of underwater sabotage.
Poland Border Guard
Cocaine is routinely seized at sea, however often from drug trafficking vessels like “narco subs” within the Pacific and Caribbean.
The operation in Poland marks the newest discovery by European authorities of cocaine in uncommon locations in latest months. Simply final week, authorities in Luxembourg seized nearly a ton of cocaine hidden in a stone crusher. In December, authorities in Spain launched video exhibiting the invention of seven tons of cocaine buried beneath a farm. A couple of weeks earlier than that, police in Spain seized a file haul of cocaine that was hid in a cargo of bananas from Ecuador.
Throughout the globe, would-be drug smugglers have hidden cocaine in the whole lot from automobile mufflers and surfboards to sugar and jalapeno peppers.
Cocaine has been discovered within the ocean and alongside coastlines many occasions earlier than — particularly in Florida. Final August, Hurricane Debby blew 25 packages of cocaine onto a seashore within the Florida Keys. A couple of weeks later, 16 bricks of suspected cocaine had been discovered by vacationers on a seashore in the identical area.
In June 2024, boaters off the coast of Florida discovered 65 kilos of cocaine floating within the ocean, and earlier that month, divers discovered 25 kilograms of cocaine about 100 toes underwater off Key West.
