85 kg cocaine worth $23 mn seized in Italy

Rome: About 85 kg of pure cocaine, worth around 17 million euros (about $23 million) in retail market, was seized Monday from an Italian port of Gioia Tauro, a media report said.

Police reportedly uncovered the illegal shipment following a series of crossed checks of suspicious containers at the port, one of Europe`s largest container ports located in Calabria region. The cocaine was hidden in two containers filled with wood coming from Chile, Xinhua reported. Overall seizure of drugs in the port of Gioia Tauro, the largest terminal for the transshipment of the Mediterranean sea, amounts to as much as 945 kg of cocaine since the beginning of 2014, according to official figures. Italian experts have said the port of Gioia Tauro is a fundamental crossroads for the international traffic of cocaine from Latin America destined to the European markets.