Grocery store employees find $16 million worth of cocaine in banana boxes

(Image credit: Twitter.com/dw_english)

published 4 May 2015

Aldi supermarket employees in Germany found more than just fruit in shipments from Colombia: Workers in 14 different stores discovered a total of 850 pounds of cocaine in several boxes of bananas.

Police spokesman Stefan Redlich said the illicit cargo was found in boxes in Berlin and the neighboring state of Brandenburg, and is the largest amount found in the capital in a single operation. The cocaine is worth an estimated €15 million, or $16.7 million. In some boxes, more than 10 kilograms were found, wrapped in black plastic.

Redlich told the radio station RBB he thinks the smugglers made a "logistical error" somewhere along the way. "The route across the Atlantic is known by police," he said. "The wrong container was probably used when the merchandise was put on board ship. Or possibly, there wasn't time for the smugglers to unload it when it arrived in Hamburg." Investigators are still searching through boxes for more drugs, Deutsche Welle reports, and it's a bit of a déjà vu moment: In January 2014, workers at Aldi branches in Berlin found 140 kilos of cocaine in banana boxes.