A ship that came from Nicaragua and then traveled through Central America was detained by the Italian Police with a shipment of 116 kilos of cocaine. The ship entered through the port of Liguria (northeast Italy). The drug load has an estimated value of 7 million euros, according to the authorities.
The drug was hidden among a shipment of coffee and was intercepted at the Vado Ligure port, near Genoa and considered one of the privileged gateways for the introduction of drugs into Italy. The operation was carried out jointly between the Financial Police and the Italian Customs Agency.
The Italian authorities have put shipments arriving from Central American countries and some from South America under scrutiny, with greater investigation into those who “carry” food. Drug trafficking crimes with shipments from this area have a higher sentence in the European country.
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The shipment, according to the Italian investigation, was shipped for the first time in Nicaragua, then traveled to Mexico and Ecuador where it was stranded for a time longer than normal for a container of coffee, which caught the attention of the authorities and forced a thorough investigation.
Now the investigation focuses on identifying the recipients of the important shipment of drugs, the Finance Guard added. According to a Europol report, the drugs intercepted in EU ports, especially in ports in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, have been chartered in Ecuador and Colombia.
