Police discover 2 tons of cocaine value greater than $440 million floating off the coast of Italy

• Italian police stumbled upon almost two tons of cocaine floating within the Mediterranean sea.
• Greater than $440 million value of cocaine was present in 70 packages related by a signaling system.
• In a Monday assertion, police mentioned it was one of many largest ever seizures within the nation.

Italian police stumbled upon a bootleg substance jackpot off the coast of Sicily over the weekend once they found almost two tons of cocaine floating within the Mediterranean Sea throughout a routine surveillance flight. 

In a Monday assertion, Italy’s monetary police, the Guardia di Finanza, mentioned officers seized greater than $440 million value of cocaine they discovered packaged in 70 waterproof bundles bobbing within the open water.

Police mentioned the cautious packaging of the medication was doubtless in place to guard the cocaine from water infiltration. Authorities additionally discovered a light-up signaling system within the water that seemed to be holding the packages collectively through a number of nets. 

Officers speculated {that a} cargo ship dumped the medication at sea for traffickers to choose up and ship to the mainland the place the cocaine might be bought for a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}. The signaling system was doubtless used to trace the contents of the packages, based on police. 

—Guardia di Finanza (@GDF) April 17, 2023

Air and maritime authorities with the Sicilian municipality of Catania supplied cowl for responding officers to retrieve the medication, and officers mentioned they’re persevering with to look the close by space for any further packages. 

After bringing the medication to land, authorities examined the contents of the packages and decided that the white powder inside was certainly cocaine, the Guardia di Finanza mentioned.

Within the Monday assertion, police mentioned it was one of many largest-ever seizures within the nation.

“The identification and subsequent seizure of an identical amount of medication, one of many largest ever carried out within the nationwide territory, prevented the drug from being prone to be recovered by prison topics for subsequent unlawful advertising within the nationwide territory, which might have yielded very excessive earnings, within the order of roughly over 400 million euros at retail,” police mentioned. 

The invention comes simply weeks after New Zealand police intercepted half a billion {dollars} value of cocaine — sufficient to service all the nationwide marketplace for 30 years — floating within the Pacific Ocean in February. 

In 2017, Spanish police seized greater than two metric tons of cocaine from a ship crusing within the Atlantic Ocean and arrested seven crew members.