Police in Italy have seized round 150kg (330lbs) of pure cocaine hidden 9 metres (30ft) underwater in a ship’s hull.
The haul was price round €5m (£4.3m) wholesale however may have had a road worth of about €25m (£21.5m), investigators mentioned.
Officers from the Italian State Police and Finance Police boarded the cargo vessel, registered within the Marshall Islands, after it docked in Ravenna, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea in northern Italy, final week.
Specialist divers searched beneath the ship in tough sea circumstances for a number of hours earlier than they discovered 139 blocks of pure cocaine.
Video launched by investigators confirmed the divers discovering massive silver-coloured packages underwater, lifting them on to a police boat and opening them with knives.
Among the bricks had photographs on them, together with a bicycle.
The medication had been wrapped in plastic to guard them from water harm.
The ship, carrying fertiliser, had set sail from Santos in Brazil on the finish of February, heading for northern Europe earlier than arriving within the Italian metropolis late final Tuesday evening, prosecutors mentioned.
Specialist police divers retrieved the stash. Pic: Guardia di Finanza/Polizia di Stato
Officers convey the medication aboard a ship. Pic: Guardia di Finanza/Polizia di Stato
Divers from the Rimini della Finanza air-naval operations division searched the submerged a part of the hull and located a number of casings hidden contained in the pipes roughly 9 meters under the floor.
Believing they weren’t important, they pulled them out and located the medication.