The State Customs Service and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) found around 152 kilograms of cocaine on June 29 during customs inspection of a vessel from Chile at the Odesa merchant seaport.
The press service of the State Customs Service announced this in a statement.
The drug find was the result of a special operation that the State Customs Service and the Security Service of Ukraine conducted with the Warsaw office of the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) aiming to close channel for smuggling drugs from South America and Europe.
According to the press service, the cocaine was hidden in specially equipped caches inside 200 planks.
According to the declaration that was submitted to the customs, the container contained 8,700 planks weighing 2.3 tons, and it was being transported from Bolivia to a Ukrainian company.
However, mobile X-ray equipment established that polythene briquettes containing which substances were hidden inside the planks.
A total of 572 briquettes (about 265 grams each) weighing a total of 152 kilograms were seized.
This is the largest lot of cocaine seized by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies in the past 12 years.
A preliminary analysis established that the seized briquettes contained cocaine.
A criminal investigation has been launched to establish the people that organized the smuggling of the cocaine.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the customs officials detained a citizen of one of the Baltic States in May on suspicion of smuggling 1.5 kilograms of cocaine.
