The Ecuadorean police seized 82.7 kg of cocaine allegedly headed for Spain, in an operation in the port of Manta (in southwestern Ecuador), police sources indicated.
The Ecuadorean police seized 82.7 kg of cocaine allegedly headed for Spain, in an operation in the port of Manta (in southwestern Ecuador), police sources indicated.
The contraband, valued at five million dollars, was found in the trailer of a truck parked outside a fishing business in Manta (around 420 km southwest of Quito), agents from the anti-narcotics division who participated in the operation told the press.
A total of seventy packets of cocaine hydrochloride were found in the vehicle, originating in the port of Guayaquil, according to the police, who detained the truck’s driver after being alerted by an anonymous telephone call.
The investigators presume that the shipment was going to be hidden between slabs of fish to be taken back to Guayaquil, from where it would be sent to Spain, the police sources specified.
In April, the police made two other seizures of cocaine headed for Spain in Guayaquil. In the first case, 795 kg hidden in an export shipment of tuna were seized, and subsequently, 1.3 tons were found disguised as fruit.
The majority of the latter contraband, 1,021 kg, was going to be dispatched to Belgium, and the remainder to the Iberian Peninsula, according to the authorities.