Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has seized over half a tonne of Colombian cocaine at the London Gateway port.
The NCA, roughly equivalent to America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), intercepted the huge narcotics haul alongside the Border Force, according to an official statement.
Drug traffickers had hidden their illicit cargo in a shipment of bananas from Colombia, notorious for its status as a major cocaine producer.
“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,” suggested NCA Branch Operations Manager Adam Berry.
“Class A drugs are pedalled by gangs involved in violence and exploitation in our communities, he continued.
“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.”
The law enforcement agency did not indicate whether any arrests were made at the time of the seizure, however.
Multicultural London, led by Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, may be Europe’s worst city for cocaine abuse, with a King’s College London (KCL) analysis published in 2019 suggesting its cocaine problem is worse than that of Berlin, Barcelona, and Amsterdam — all significant hubs for drug abuse — combined.
Forensic analyses of the cities’ wastewater to find traces of benzoylecgonine, produced by the body as a side-effect of cocaine abuse, suggested that Londoners consume 23 kilograms (51 pounds) of the drug on a daily basis — equivalent to some half a million doses.
KCL scientist Dr Leon Barron suggested that, in contrast to other European cocaine abuse hubs, London saw “sustained cocaine usage across the week,” making it an “everyday” drug.
“That is in contrast to other cities where you see a very marked [rise in] recreational use at the weekend,” he explained.
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