Video: Costa Rica’s biggest-ever cocaine bust was headed to Netherlands
With reporting by Jamie de Geir.
The largest drug bust in Costa Rica’s history involved over five thousand kilograms of cocaine destined for The Netherlands. The drugs were found on Saturday, hidden amongst a shipment of canopy plants being sent to Rotterdam, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Security.
A search of a sea container at the Port in Limón turned up 5,048 individually wrapped bundles of cocaine, each weighing about a kilogram. The packages were stashed inside 202 black duffel bags.
The value of the cocaine was estimated at 126 million euros, the ministry said based on street values in Netherlands. “It is a historic seizure. It is a blow to the regional criminal structures” Public Security Minister Michael Soto Rojas said in a statement to Reuters about the bust.
A 46-year-old Costa Rican man was arrested in connection with the case, AFP reported. He is suspected of driving the drug shipment to the port, according to Reuters.
On the same day as the bust in Costa Rica, the Dutch authorities made a drug bust of their own. Some 500 kilograms of cocaine was found at the port of Rotterdam hidden within a mango shipment. The cargo had arrived from Brazil, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (OM). No arrests were announced in the case. The drugs were later destroyed. An investigation into the case is ongoing, the OM said.
