Story By: Pol F, Sub-Editor: Joe Golder, Agency: Newsflash
A drug detection dog has managed to help the Anti-Narcotics Police of Ecuador seize 1.4 tons of cocaine after sniffing it out despite being hidden in boxes of smelly frozen fish.
The drugs were hidden in a container filled with boxes of fish on a cargo ship destined for Belgium.
The cache was found in a shipment of fish, where 1,450 of the boxed packages were found to contain 1,448 kg (3192 lbs) of cocaine after they were examined in a port in the city of Guayaquil, in the province of Guaya, in Ecuador, located in the North Western area of South America, on Tuesday (6th October).
Personnel from special units participated in the police operation, called “Trebol” as reported in Mexican newspaper Debate.
The dog “Garo” reportedly detected the shipment of narcotic substances that were intended to be sent to Europe.
When the boxes were opened they revealed “several rectangular-shaped packages, wrapped in brown packing tape,” containing “a compact off-white substance”
After they did the reaction tests, it was positive for cocaine, as said on the police report, according to local newspaper LaRepublicaEcuador.
In the operation, the legal representative of the export company that processed the shipment of the cargo was detained for investigation.
According to the Police, the seizure of the cache led to the elimination of more than 14 million doses of cocaine, which were intended to reach the European market.
The police entity estimated in its statement that the value of the drug on the Ecuadorian black market would reach USD 2.7 million (GBP 2,097,495), while in Europe it would be around USD 53 million ( GBP 41,173,050).
In 2019, the authorities reported that about 62 tons of cocaine had been seized in the Antwerp port in Belgium, of which 60 percent came from South American countries such as Brazil (15.9 tons), Colombia (10.5 tons) and Ecuador (10.5 tons).
Guayaquil, in Ecuador, is a point frequently used by drug trafficking mafias to “contaminate” the cargo ships in which they place drugs to reach their destinations abroad.
Therefore, the special units of the Ecuadorian Police carry out frequent operations to detect drugs and prevent the trafficking of narcotic substances.
Ecuador, which does not produce drugs, is considered a transit country for these types of substances that come from neighbouring nations such as Colombia and Peru.
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