Police in Algeciras have seized 448 kilos of cocaine hidden inside fake plastic bananas concealed within shipments of real fruit from Ecuador.
Four people have so far been arrested in connection with the smuggling of the drugs from Ecuador to Spain although the police investigation is still open and further arrests are not being ruled out. The detentions were in Roldan (Murcia), Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid) and Alicante..
The organisation used a legitimate trading company as a front for their smuggling activities, first arranging several normal shipments of bananas from Ecuador. Once they had established themselves as ‘legitimate’, they began shipping the fake bananas containing cocaine.
The police investigation into the activities of this smuggling network began in January 2011.