Customs Department officers on duty at the Customs Scanning Facility at the Malta Freeport on Tuesday seized 32.4 million euros of worth of cocaine at Malta freeport.
The drugs were found in refrigerated containers which were flagged by the Container Monitoring Unit due to their high risk route.
Following the scanning of said containers using the state-of-the-art equipment, it resulted that three of them contained hidden packets in the refridgerant compressor compartment, while the other shipment of drugs was concealed behind paneling of an inner compartment.
The four containers were subsequently checked physically and found to contain:
· Container number one - 37 packets of cocaine, weighing 44.4kgs, with an approximate street value of 5 million euros;
· Container number two - 54 packets of cocaine, weighing 64.8kgs, with an approximate street value of 7.3 million euros;
· Container number three - 69 packets of cocaine, weighing 82.8kgs, with an approximate street value of 9.3 million euros;
· Container number four - 80 packets of cocaine, weighing 96kg, with an approximate street value of 10.8 million euros.
A total of 240 packets, weighing 288 kg, were elevated, wiping out 32.4 million euros of cocaine off the streets.
All four reefer containers were carrying fruit and transited through Malta from South America en-route to an EU member state.
The case was handed over to the Police Anti Drug Squad, who are conducting the investigations.
The duty magistrate is leading the inquiry assisted by a team of experts from the Police Forensics Unit.