Cocaine under peanuts, cannabis with meat: Bulgarian customs make major drug busts
Near Vidin, customs officers seized 348 kilograms of cocaine and marijuana from a truck, and near Lovech some 200 kilograms of marijuana and cocaine in meat trucks.
Symbolic image · Photo: G.Garitan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
During a check near the Danube Bridge 2 Vidin–Calafat border crossing, customs officers from the Ruse Customs Directorate found 348 kilograms of drugs in a Bulgarian-registered truck late on Oct. 8: 16 packages holding 19.3 kilograms of cocaine in a false floor and 190 packages with 329 kilograms of marijuana under pallets of peanuts. According to details presented on Monday (Oct. 12), the groupage cargo had been declared as shipped from Spain to recipients in Bulgaria and Greece. The Vidin District Prosecutor's Office is investigating cross-border drug transport.
Near Lovech, customs officers together with the organized crime directorate GDBOP found two suspicious trucks on the premises of a meat plant. A hiding place in the ceiling of one trailer held 204 one-kilogram packages that tested positive for cannabis; in the second truck, seven packages that tested positive for cocaine were found among meat products. The investigation is ongoing, BNT reported.
According to the authorities, the checks near Vidin are part of compensatory measures following Bulgaria's accession to Schengen. It was the largest case at this crossing, said the head of the anti-drug unit in charge; near Ruse, more than 500 kilograms of marijuana had already been seized this year together with GDBOP.