Cocaine packets with Nazi flag printed on the outside seized in Peru
26 May 2023, 07:54
A total of 58 one-kilo packages were seized at the northern port of Paita.
Peruvian police have seized 58 one-kilo packages of cocaine bearing pictures of a Nazi flag on the outside.
Officers also found the name “Hitler” stamped on the drugs after they were discovered in the port of Paita, on Peru’s northern Pacific coast close to its border with Ecuador.
The drugs were hidden inside a shipping container carrying asparagus on the Liberian-flagged vessel SC Anisha R that had earlier anchored in the Ecuadorian port of Ecuador, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press.
It said the shipment was destined for a port in Belgium.
The Peruvian police’s anti-drug directorate showed videos and photographs to AP revealing that the drugs were inside the ventilation system of a container.
Officers continued to search more than 80 containers on the vessel.
Peruvian authorities have previously reported finding cocaine in brick-shaped packages with various, sometimes strange symbols, but never with one of the flag of Nazi Germany.
Authorities in Peru estimate that the country produces around 100 tonnes of drugs per year and most leave for Europe by sea, but also through small planes that carry cocaine to Bolivia, on its way to Atlantic ports.
Peru is the world’s second-largest grower of coca leaf, according to the United Nations, and the world’s second-largest producer of cocaine, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
