(Bloomberg) -- Germany's customs authorities have seized 4.5 tons of cocaine, the country's biggest ever haul.
The seizure has an estimated value of 1 billion euros, according to a statement from the customs office in Hamburg. About 4,200 packets of pressed cocaine were found in a supposed soybean container coming from Montevideo in Uruguay to Antwerp, Belgium.
“Customs succeeded in opening the right containers and extracting illegal goods from the enormous number of containers that pass through the Port of Hamburg every day,” said Rolf Bösinger, the state secretary in charge of customs at the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The cocaine has already been destroyed. In 2017, about 3.8 tons of the drug were seized in three different actions, according to the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Vanessa Dezem in Frankfurt at vdezem@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Melinda Grenier
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