Overview

• Investigators discovered on June 12 that 3.6 tonnes of cocaine were concealed among bananas in a refrigerated container at Southampton port.
• After the drugs were removed under police supervision, the container was shipped to Hamburg and tracked to a warehouse in Winsen, Lower Saxony, where six suspects were detained on June 17.
• The men, aged 26 to 53, include German, Turkish, Colombian and Belarusian nationals and face varying legal outcomes: four have pretrial detention orders while two were released for lack of grounds.
• Hamburg police estimate the cocaine’s street value at about 90 million euros and say the operation underscores criminal networks’ use of major European ports for large-scale trafficking.
• This haul follows other major port interceptions, including a 16-ton seizure in Hamburg in February 2021 and a 5.7-ton confiscation in Southampton last year.