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Spanish police seize over a ton of cocaine

Written by DPA Monday, 08 March 2010 00:00

Almost 1.2 tons of cocaine has been seized and 16 arrests made in two separate drug actions, Spanish police said on Monday.

The bigger swoop targeted a ring which had imported a ton of Colombian cocaine on board a refrigerated container ship that sailed into the Basque port of Bilbao from Panama.

The drug had been dissolved in cans of fruit pulp, which suspects were handling when police raided their hideout in the northern region of Navarre.

Police said the drug had a black market value of more than 30 million euros (40 million dollars).

In the second swoop, police in the southern city of Seville seized 175 kilograms of cocaine and detained nine people.

The drug had been smuggled into the port of Algeciras, hidden in a cargo of wooden floor planks arriving from Paraguay.

Spain is regarded as the main point of entry for Latin American cocaine into the European Union market.