The shipment was stopped at Buenos Aires Airport
Argentinian customs police say they have stopped a shipment of cocaine concealed in heavy dredging equipment being air-freighted to the Nigerian capital of Lagos.
Weighing in excess of half of a tonne and thought to be heading to Europe via the African state, the director-general of Argentina’s customs agency, told local media that the cocaine was found tightly packed into 490 brightly coloured bricks and was discovered after the dredging equipment was dismantled.
Maria Ayeran added that suspicions regarding the shipment were raised when it became clear that a Nigerian company that was to receive the shipment did not exist. Sniffer dogs were used to scan the machinery and officers “found 536 kilos of pure cocaine inside thick walls of lead and steel”
“Today the link with Africa is a new route that they are exploiting and is in development,” she is reported to have told the Associated Press agency.
US authorities extradited a Panamanian warehouse owner in July on suspicion of shipping $100 millions of dollars worth of cocaine hidden in construction machinery via Mexico.