Three men were detained in yet another fruit-related drug bust recently, after Dutch customs officials found 900kg of cocaine hidden inside a banana consignment from Ecuador.

In an announcement on May 31, the District Procuratorate in Rotterdam said the drugs were discovered in a container scan which revealed 900 packets of the powder weighing 1kg each.

The cocaine is estimated to have a street value of more than €30 million.

Led by a prosecutor, a team of experts from Dutch customs, the seaport police and the national tax investigation office found the container had been taken to a warehouse in the borough of Hoogvliet last Thursday.

A police team then raided the warehouse as people were unpacking the container.

Photos from the Procuratorate show the boxes concerned bore the markings of the well-known fruit brand of British-Ecuadorian company BanaBay.

At the time of writing BanaBay had not yet responded to requests for comment.

In late January, Ecuadorian police found 1.5 metric tons (MT) of cocaine hidden in fake bananas, while in mid-May the Colombian National Police claimed they had made the country's biggest ever drug seizure on a banana operation in Turbo with a weight of 8MT and a value of US$240 million.

However, the Colombian Banana Growers’ Association (AUGURA) denied that the bust occurred on "any banana farm".

Photo: © Openbaar Ministerie

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