Poland seizes cocaine worth around $44M

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's Border Guard seized almost 440 kilograms of cocaine worth around 180 million zlotys ($43.6 million) at the Baltic sea port of Gdynia, it said on Thursday.

The cocaine was hidden in containers, which were full of floor boards from Bolivia, and had been shipped from Chile, the Border Guard said.

"Experts found that it (the cocaine) was exceptionally pure," Border Guard spokesperson Anna Michalska told state-run news channel TVP Info. "It was a big blow to this criminal group, they lost a lot of money."

A 46-year-old man from the Mazowieckie region of central Poland has been detained in connection with the case and authorities said more arrests could follow.

A record 303 tons of cocaine was seized by European Union Member States in 2021, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain were the countries reporting the largest seizures of the drug, which is the second-most widely used in Europe after cannabis.

In 2020, Polish authorities seized a record haul of over three tons of cocaine hidden in barrels of frozen pineapple pulp in Gdynia. ($1 = 4.1257 zlotys) — Reuters