Yahoo News US customs officials seize cocaine worth £100 million on its way to London
Customs officials in the US have seized more than £100 million of cocaine in a container bound for London.
Around 1.5 tonnes of the drug was found in a truck at the Port of New York-Newark after the National Crime Agency (NCA) tipped off authorities in the US.
The container was due to be shipped to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and then on to London.
The NCA said 60 packages weighing around 1,437kg were intercepted during the bust – believed to be the biggest at the US port in a quarter of a century – on February 28.
Dave Hucker, regional head of international operations for the NCA, said: “Taking this amount of cocaine out of circulation will be a massive hit for the organised crime group involved.
“While this seizure was made on the other side of the Atlantic there is no doubt in my mind that a proportion of these drugs would have ended up on the streets of the UK.
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“We know there are direct links between drug distribution and street violence, intimidation and exploitation in UK towns and cities.
“These kind of seizures demonstrate the role the NCA plays in preventing that.”
