Customs officials in Antwerp, Europe's largest entry point for fresh produce imports, have seized what is by far the largest consignment of cocaine ever discovered passing through the port.
The eight-tonne haul, reportedly the biggest ever in both Belgium and the Netherlands and the second-largest in Europe, was found in a container carrying bananas from Ecuador.
According to Lloyd's List, the 7,000 or so individual packs of cocaine were almost certainly bound for the Netherlands, where they would have had an estimated street value of around €500m.
Police arrested one Belgian truck driver and four Dutch nationals on the outskirts of Rotterdam as they were unloading the container, while an Antwerp-based customs officer was also taken into custody.
The bananas themselves, in the meantime, have been given to some of Rotterdam's hungriest consumers – the animals at Rotterdam's Blijdorp Zoo.
