Italian police on Tuesday said they seized pure cocaine with an estimated street value of $286 million that was hidden inside containers of bananas at a port in northwest Italy. It marks the latest instance of the illicit drug being concealed in a shipment of the tropical fruit. Some 1,700 pounds of cocaine was concealed in a refrigerated container from Ecuador among dozens of pallets of bananas found at the port of Vado Ligure, police said in a statement .
Authorities released a video showing officers pulling the alleged drugs from the banana shipment. Following a previous drug seizure at the same port, authorities have increased monitoring of Vado Ligure as a potential transit point for international trafficking. Investigators said the port's role as a growing European trade hub also makes it an attractive target for criminal networks involved in illicit activities.
Police earlier this month seized 340 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of 120 million euros in the same port. Cocaine has been found inside shipments of bananas around the world. In March, three people were charged in the United Kingdom after they allegedly attempted to traffic nearly $100 million worth of cocaine in a shipment of the fruit.
Last August, Greek police said they seized nearly 600 pounds of cocaine hidden inside a container of bananas imported from Ecuador. In July 2025, Russia said it seized 1,800 pounds of cocaine hidden under a shipment of bananas. Two months before that, employees at a Norwegian fruit distributor discovered a packet of cocaine in a box of bananas, alerting customs officials who found a stash of 147 kilos .
In December 2024, authorities in the Dominican Republic confiscated nearly 9.5 tons of cocaine from a banana shipment at the country's most important seaport. In August 2024, customs agents seized more than 200 pounds of cocaine at the port in Greece from a ship carrying the fruit. The month before that, police dogs in Ecuador helped find more than six tons of cocaine hidden in a banana shipment headed to Germany.
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