VALENCIA: Six Britons have been arrested after police found 1.5 tonnes of cocaine worth £240m disguised as wooden pallets at a Spanish port.
Spanish police seized 40 pallets made out of 1.5 tonnes of compressed cocaine that was made to look like wood that arrived on a shipping container from Colombia.
Acting on intelligence from the National Crime Agency (NCA), officers from the Spanish National Police searched the shipping container which arrived in the Port of Valencia, Spain’s second-busiest port, on 30 November.
The international operation has led to 11 arrests, the seizure of 1.5 tonnes of cocaine and the shut down of an industrial-sized drug production lab.
The container appeared to be loaded with sacks of charcoal on wooden pallets but forensic examination found that the pallets were made of compressed cocaine powder made to look like wood, and some of the sacks contained cocaine disguised as charcoal.
The authorities suspect the group used a charcoal company in Spain as a front to import the cocaine and hide a lab where the drug was extracted from pallets and charcoal, processed and repackaged for distribution across Europe.
It was then shipped to Valencia by boat, where the traffickers planned to distribute the drug around Europe.
The false pallets arrived along with 24 tonnes of charcoal, which the traffickers used in a bid to put sniffer dogs off the scent.
Forensic scientist Richard Hooker, of Allen Morgan Associates which provide expert evidence on drug cases, said the smuggles used glue and moulds to make the cocaine look like wooden pallets.
“To make the cocaine look like wooden pallets they have dissolved the white cocaine powder with a solvent or glue,” he said.
“It has then been placed into moulds shaped like pallets to set.
“When the resin dries out it then solidifies. If you mix it with a dye it then gives the wood effect and gives the appearance of dark wood.
“Once the dealers get it they can then re-dissolve it and reverse the process to extract the cocaine.
“The same process can also be used to make it look like pieces of charcoal by using charcoal powder.”
