by Lloyd's List

9 December 2024 (Lloyd's List) - AUTHORITIES in the Dominican Republic have discovered 9.8 tonnes of cocaine at the port of Caucedo, near the capital Santo Domingo.

The find was made in a container of bananas, National Drug Control Directorate’s communications chief Carlos Denvers, told reporters at a press conference.

Denvers said early investigations showed the bananas arrived from Guatemala. Authorities found 320 bags of cocaine with an estimated value of $250m.

“Many unknown individuals tried to transfer the drugs to another container that would be shipped on a vessel to Belgium,” Denvers said.

The bust is the biggest in Dominican Republic history.

DP World, which operates the multimodal port of Caucedo, declined to comment.

DNCD’s record-breaking bust follows a similarly spectacular discovery at Algeciras, Spain, where police found 13 tonnes of cocaine in another shipment of bananas.

As Lloyd’s List reported earlier in the year, a crackdown on Europe’s major ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam was only partially successful.

Preliminary figures collated by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime indicate that drug traffickers have simply pivoted and begun using other, smaller ports in southern Europe.