More than 1.7TONS of cocaine is found hidden in avocado shipments heading from Colombia

A Colombian drug trafficking organization was dismantled trying to smuggle cocaine worth more than $50 million inside shipments of avocados.

The latest attempt was unsuccessful when police officers discovered 1.7 tonnes of drugs hidden inside a shipment of fruit heading to Portugal.

The discovery occurred Monday while anti-narcotics agents were conducting a routine inspection of containers in the Caribbean port city of Santa Marta, according to National Police Director General William Salamanca.

The drugs, whose street value in the United States is approximately $50.8 million, were destined for Setúbal, 30 miles south of Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.

Images shared by Salamanca on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter showed agents removing sealed packages of cocaine from a box filled with dozens of avocados.

The Colombian Minister of Defense, Iván Velásque, said in X that the shipment contained 1,696 kilos in total and most likely belonged ‘to the Gulf Clan’.

The cartel, also known as Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, is the most powerful criminal organization in the country and is made up of former paramilitary leaders.

Its former leader, Darío “Otoniel” Úsuga, was captured in October 2021 and extradited to the United States in May 2022.

In January 2023, he pleaded guilty before a federal court judge in New York to smuggling 110 tons of cocaine and was fined $216 million. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison in August 2023.

The National Police said in a statement that the raid eliminated the circulation of 4,250,000 doses of cocaine from the streets.

More than 80 tons of cocaine have been seized in the first three months of 2024.

The South American nation is one of the main producers of cocaine and its government constantly faces pressure from the United States to curb its production.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, coca crops in Colombia covered 568,000 acres in 2022, the latest year for which figures are available, 13 percent more than in 2021.