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Massive ganja find in Jamaican tinned ackee, callaloo
Published: Thursday June 7, 2012 | 10:42 am Comments 0
An attempt to smuggle approximately 2.5 tonnes of cannabis into the UK, inside thousands of tins of food has been prevented by Border Force officers at the Port of Tilbury.
The drugs which valued between £6 and £7 million were discovered last Wednesday, inside a container of callaloo and ackee that had been shipped to the UK from Jamaica.
According to reports, officers searched the container and found boxes holding thousands of 500gm tins, while the majority of the tins held the fruit or vegetable as listed, around 40 per cent had cannabis inside.
Border Force Officer, Dean Milton said it was an elaborate and labour intensive attempt to breach border controls.
He said the smugglers had been careful to ensure that each of the tins weighed precisely 500gms and had been hermetically sealed. To the naked eye there was nothing to differentiate between a tin that contained an innocent foodstuff and one that was hiding illegal drugs.
All of the tins had to be examined by hand by Border Force officers. It took two days to complete the search.
Milton said by preventing these drugs from reaching the UK’s streets, they have hit the smugglers where it hurts and denied them of the potential proceeds of their criminal enterprise.
The shipment, which was heading for London, has been destroyed.
No arrests have been made.
Border Force officers use a combination of hi-tech x-ray scanning equipment and intelligence, to weed out the illegal goods hidden inside the containers that pass through Tilbury.
Published: Thursday June 7, 2012 | 10:42 am Comments 0
An attempt to smuggle approximately 2.5 tonnes of cannabis into the UK, inside thousands of tins of food has been prevented by Border Force officers at the Port of Tilbury.
The drugs which valued between £6 and £7 million were discovered last Wednesday, inside a container of callaloo and ackee that had been shipped to the UK from Jamaica.
According to reports, officers searched the container and found boxes holding thousands of 500gm tins, while the majority of the tins held the fruit or vegetable as listed, around 40 per cent had cannabis inside.
Border Force Officer, Dean Milton said it was an elaborate and labour intensive attempt to breach border controls.
He said the smugglers had been careful to ensure that each of the tins weighed precisely 500gms and had been hermetically sealed. To the naked eye there was nothing to differentiate between a tin that contained an innocent foodstuff and one that was hiding illegal drugs.
All of the tins had to be examined by hand by Border Force officers. It took two days to complete the search.
Milton said by preventing these drugs from reaching the UK’s streets, they have hit the smugglers where it hurts and denied them of the potential proceeds of their criminal enterprise.
The shipment, which was heading for London, has been destroyed.
No arrests have been made.
Border Force officers use a combination of hi-tech x-ray scanning equipment and intelligence, to weed out the illegal goods hidden inside the containers that pass through Tilbury.
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