Cocaine with a street value of $ 132 million was taken from a ship leaving Panama by border authorities in the United Kingdom.
The 2.4 tonnes of the drug seized at the London Gateway port near the capital, according to Border Force Maritime director Charlie Eastaugh, was “one of the largest of its kind,” Eastaugh said on Saturday.
The haul, discovered underneath containers on a ship leaving Panama, was the sixth-largest cocaine ever to be discovered, according to the UK’s Home Office.
Following a 37-inch moving operation led by intelligence-led officers earlier this month, they discovered the shipment.
According to the National Crime Agency, the UK has one of Europe’s largest cocaine markets. According to the UK government, cocaine-related deaths in England and Wales increased by 31 percent between 2022 and 2023.
The latest year for which comprehensive data is available, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported on Thursday that the cocaine trade increased to record-highs in 2023.
The Vienna-based organization’s annual World Drug Report revealed that cocaine was the world’s “fastest-growing illicit drug market,” with Colombian production rising as demand for the substance reaches Europe and North and South America.
Source: Aljazeera
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