REGGIO CALABRIA -- A cargo of three tons of pure cocaine traveling from Ecuador was found hidden in containers of bananas and was seized in the port of Gioia Tauro in Reggio Calabria, police sources said. 

 The cocaine, weighing two tons and 734 kilograms, was destined for Armenia, but the provincial command and officials of the Customs Office of Gioia Tauro found two containers of bananas from Guayaquil, Equador, destined to reach Armenia through the port of Batumi, Georgia. The fruit should have arrived in ports in Italy, Croatia, and Greece. 

 They found the cocaine in the containers, refrigerated and over 12 meters long, hidden alongside 78 tons of bananas. The Reggio Calabria District Anti-Mafia Directorate conducted the seizue. 

 A press release stated that the "in-depth studies on the documentation found and the cross-checks, carried out through the databases, on the companies involved in the operation confirmed the investigative hypotheses and the need to proceed with the inspection of the two refrigerated boxes in which the cocaine was hidden." 

 After a "long and complex search operation," the statement reads, the "sophisticated scanners supplied to the Customs Office and the canine units of the finance police, with the anti-drug dog Joel," allowed them to find the cocaine. 

 According to the statement, the traffickers would have yielded over 800 million euros, had the operation been successful. 

 In the following days, finance police soldiers and customs officials identified further loads of cocaine, totaling 600 kilograms. The drugs were found hidden in six containers among goods, "in false bottoms, or, again, in the external cavities of the boxes." 

 Since January 2021, a total of about 37 tons of cocaine have been seized in the port of Gioia Tauro. 

 jd