Bulgarian customs officers seized 170 kg of cocaine hidden in a banana shipment at Burgas port

Bulgarian customs officers seized a record amount of cocaine at the port of Burgas. The drug is nearly 170 kg. It was hidden in refrigerated containers in which bananas were stored. No arrests have yet been made in the case.

The container with the bananas arrived yesterday, March 25, at one of the private ports in Burgas. It was unloaded from a Liberian-flagged ship. It left from Ecuador, made stops in Panama, Malta and Italy before reaching Burgas. After unloading the containers of bananas, an inspection by customs officials followed, who came across the hidden drugs. According to investigators, such quantity of drugs is sold on the wholesale market for nearly 6.8 million dollars. An investigation is ongoing to clarify for whom the shipment of drugs was intended and whether after the unloading of the bananas, the container was planned to be shipped in another direction.

Investigators described the drug seizure as unprecedented in recent years.

Petya Bankova, Head of the Bulgarian Customs Agency: "This is the largest seizure of cocaine, of any drug at all, at Burgas port."

Containers of bananas arriving from Ecuador were checked by customs officials after they were unloaded in Burgas. Suspicious areas were spotted in three of them.

Stefan Bakalov, head of the Anti-Drug Trafficking Department at the Customs Agency: Suspicious shadows at several places were spotted in one of the containers after an X-ray check. A total of 150 packages of high-quality cocaine were found inside it. They were concealed at the bottom of the container in a factory-built wall behind the generator."

The importer of the bananas from the container is a large Bulgarian company.

Georgi Chinev, head of the District Prosecutor's Office - Burgas: "At this stage, no involvement of the company's employees or any of its managers in the process of criminal activity has been established. This does not mean, of course, that all these issues will not be clarified in detail."

In the summer of 2019, 76 kg of cocaine was found in a warehouse in Burgas of the same company, among the bananas. Investigators are checking whether there is a link between the two cases.

Elka Dobrikova, supervising prosecutor: "A number of procedural and investigative actions are to be carried out to reveal the objective truth. The sanction for the crime for which the pre-trial proceedings have been initiated is imprisonment from 10 to 15 years and a fine from 100,000 to 200,000 BGN."

No one has been detained so far. BNT contacted the company that imported the bananas. We were told that the management is currently on leave and there is no one to comment on the case. And after the bananas were unloaded, the ship has left Bulgaria.

BNT: Has the entire shipment been unloaded from the ship, do you assume that there may be more containers of drugs that have remained on the ship, after the unloading of the shipment in Burgas?

Stefan Bakalov, Head of the Anti-drugs Trafficking Department at the Customs Agency. There may be various hypothesis. Everything that was unloaded at the Burgas port complex has been checked.

BNT: Actually you can only check unloaded goods?

Of course. The ship is currently in Georgia." Stefan Bakalov said.

Investigators will also use the means of international legal cooperation to clarify the case.

Images by Bulgarian Customs Agency