$153 million of cocaine found hidden in banana shipment in Russia

Russia said Wednesday it had seized 1,800 pounds of cocaine hidden under a shipment of bananas, calling it its largest bust of drugs from Latin America this year.

Russia’s customs service, working jointly with the FSB security service, said it had uncovered a batch worth “more than 12 billion rubles ($153 million)” stashed in banana containers.

The cocaine packages — disguised in briquettes bearing the label of a French luxury fashion brand — were discovered in a “hidden cavity” under the bananas, it added. In a post on social media, the Federal Customs Service of Russia released images of the cocaine and said service dogs helped sniff out the hidden drugs.

Customs officials said they carried out the bust after a tip-off from “foreign colleagues about the intention of a South American criminal group to organize a smuggling channel for cocaine supplies to Russia.”

It said an investigation had been opened into large-scale drug trafficking, a charge that in Russia carries maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Russia has a zero-tolerance policy towards drug use and smuggling, handing heavy sentences to those convicted of trafficking small amounts of narcotics — including foreigners.

Cocaine smuggling into Russia has surged over the past two years, according to Russia’s Izvestia newspaper.

Drug traffickers are increasingly looking to the country as a transit hub, in part because the Ukrainian port of Odesa has become inaccessible due to the war in Ukraine, the paper said.

Cocaine concealed in banana shipments

Cocaine has been found hidden in banana shipments across the globe in recent months.

In May, employees at a Norwegian fruit distributor discovered a packet of cocaine in a box of bananas, alerting customs officials who found a stash of 147 kilos.

Last December, authorities in the Dominican Republic confiscated nearly 9.5 tons of cocaine from a banana shipment at the country’s most important seaport. 

In August 2024, customs agents seized more than 200 pounds of cocaine at the port in Greece from a ship carrying the fruit. The month before that, police dogs in Ecuador helped find more than six tons of cocaine hidden in a banana shipment headed to Germany.

In March last year, Bulgarian customs officials confiscated about 170 kilograms of cocaine from a ship transporting bananas from Ecuador.

The month before that, British authorities said they found more than 12,500 pounds of cocaine hidden in a shipment of the fruit, breaking the record for the biggest single seizure of hard drugs in the country.