Criminal mission failed for three Albanian drug couriers who illegally entered the industrial port of Livorno to “collect” 148 kilos of cocaine in a container arriving from the port of Guayaquil (Ecuador) with a load of bananas destined for Switzerland.

The couriers, as reported by "Il Tirreno" which reports the story, were arrested by the Guardia di Finanza and are now in prison in Livorno while the cocaine was seized.

The Guardia di Finanza acted on the basis of alerts shared with the Customs Agency.

A scanner identified 139 loaves inside the container, then the finance police stationed themselves and waited a few hours to catch whoever was coming to collect the load. The couriers did not resist and were arrested. They are not residents in Italy, they had no documents and it was difficult to identify them.

Two are brothers. They would have received compensation of several thousand euros if the collection of the load had been successful. The Livorno court validated the seizure and arrests. The operation dates back to a few weeks ago.

It is the largest seizure of cocaine carried out in recent years in the port of Livorno . The drug does not stop in the Tuscan city but from here it is distributed by traffickers in Italy and abroad. In the Peninsula, usually, such large quantities of cocaine end up mostly on the Milan-Brescia route and the capital Rome, some goes to Tuscany, while in the summer the ferries from Livorno favor further distribution also for Sardinia, direction Olbia and Costa Smeralda.

(Online Union)