Cocaine worth £40 million has been smuggled into a port on the River Thames hidden in a box of bananas.
Officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) seized more than than half a tonne of the Class A drug on a boat travelling from Colombia at London Gateway on the Essex coast.
Huge slabs of cocaine were found wedged alongside bananas in cardboard boxes.
The shipment had been on route to The Netherlands when investigators discovered it.
NCA branch operations manager Adam Berry described the seizure as a ‘huge blow’ to the peddlers.
He said: ‘Taking out a consignment of this size will have been a huge blow to the criminal network involved in this shipment, preventing them from making millions of pounds that would have been invested in further criminality.
‘Class A drugs are pedalled by gangs involved in violence and exploitation in our communities.
‘The NCA works hard with partners to stop drugs getting that far, and making seizures like this demonstrate how we can break that link between international drug cartels and street-level dealers.’
A large cannabis farm was also discovered last week in a former Metropolitan Police building on the Isle of Dogs, London.
The station, on Manchester Road, was sold in February this year.
No arrests have been made yet in to the cannabis farm but an investigation has been launched.
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