CATANIA – Over two tonnes of cocaine, worth over 400 million euros, have been seized by the Guardia de Finanza from waters off of the eastern coast of Sicily, officials said. 

 During a routine exercise, police aeronaval units identified numerous floating packages by their luminous signalling devices. The packages were held together by several nets that prevented their dispersion.

 “From a cursory and external examination,” explain the investigators, “it was possible to ascertain the particular care taken in the packaging, which was probably aimed at avoiding the infiltration of water so as to preserve the contents and at the same time, avert the danger of sinking.”

 The attentive packaging and the luminous signalling devices led investigators to believe that the packages might be a cargo of narcotics, left at sea by a cargo ship, to be transported to the mainland to be picked up by buyers for the purpose of illegal sales. 

 An aerial reconnaissance activity was immediately launched by the Aeromaritime Exploration Group to verify the possible presence of further packages in the area. 

 Once the aerial and sea activities were completed, specialised units inspected the 70 recovered packages.

 Inside there were over 1,600 bricks with a total weight of two tonnes. 

 “The identification and subsequent seizure of such a quantity of drugs, one of the largest ever in the country,” said the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Catania, “prevented the drugs from being recovered by criminals for the subsequent illegal marketing on the national territory, which would have yielded very high profits, in the order of over 400 million euros in retail.”