Police dog sniffs out 2700 kg cocaine hidden in banana shipment

Police in Italy say customs officers with the help of a police dog found more than 2,700 kilos (about 3 tons) of the cocaine hidden in 70 tons of boxed bananas shipped from Ecuador

Police estimated that the cocaine, which they described as of the finest quality, could have brought traffickers more than 800 million euros ($900 million) in street sales if it had reached its ultimate destination in Armenia.

Customs police became suspicious about two containers on a cargo ship that recently arrived at the port of Gioia Tauro, in the “toe” of the Italian peninsula and a stronghold of a ‘ndrangheta organized crime clan.

 

Police told Italian state radio that documents and a background check indicated the shippers of the bananas weren't in the business of moving that much fruit.

Officers used scanning machines and the dog, named Joel, to uncover packets of cocaine hidden in boxes stacked meters-high in container trucks.

Joel leaped high and eagerly when the officers opened the back doors of the truck, and furiously hit the unloaded boxes with his paws to try to move the bananas aside, police recounted.