ZCZC
BFF-59
POLAND-ECUADOR-CRIME-DRUGS-COCAINE
Supermarket finds cocaine in bananas shipped to Poland
WARSAW, Nov 26, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Supermarket staff in Poland have
discovered bricks of cocaine hidden among bananas shipped from Ecuador to a
local supermarket chain, police said on Monday.
“We’ve confiscated over 160 kilograms (350 pounds) of what appears to be
cocaine that was shipped from Ecuador,” officer Dawid Marciniak, a spokesman
for Poland’s national police headquarters, told AFP.
Employees found cocaine bricks covered by bananas inside boxes shipped to
various outlets of a Polish supermarket chain,” Marciniak said.
Marciniak said that the largest of the bricks weighed up to one kilogram,
but declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation.
“There are obviously many questions we need to answer, namely who ordered
these shipments?” Marciniak said, adding that no arrests had been made so
far.
With local media reporting that the street value of a single gram of
cocaine runs up to 500 zloty (116 euro, $132) in Poland, the haul could be
worth upwards of 80 million zloty (18.6 million euros, $21 million).
Unconfirmed Polish media reports indicate that employees at the “Stokrotka”
(Daisy) supermarket chain began finding plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine
this weekend as they were unpacking shipments of bananas.
Stokrotka supermarkets are a subsidiary of the Maxima Group, a Lithuanian
retail chain operating some 500 grocery and other stores in the three Baltic
states plus Bulgaria and Poland.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1947 hrs