NEW YORK: Cocaine with a street value of $12million has been found concealed in a barrel of shrimp in a New York warehouse.
Sniffer dogs alerted the stash to Federal agents, who discovered 268 kilograms (590 pounds) of the drug stuffed inside the shrimps.
The cargo, which was in a shipping container, was searched at the Red Hook Container Terminal in Brooklyn. Authorities said it had arrived from Guyana, South America.
U.S. Homeland Security special agent Ryan Varrone said officers discretely removed the implanted shrimp before following the container as it passed through customs, The New York Daily News reported.
They tailed the container to a second warehouse in Brooklyn, where they watched Heeralall Sukdeo, the owner of Sukdeo Sons Fishing, unloading it with others.
Sukdeo was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking and held without bail, but insists he is innocent.
‘I’m pretty confident that when all the facts come out, this was just a huge mistake,’ his defense lawyer Andre Travieso told the website.
