The operation lasted more than a week and culminated in the arrest on Wednesday of a 28-year-old man from Vlaardingden, the Netherlands, whose address was on the shipment, Dutch police said.
Following a lead from colleagues in the Netherlands, customs officials in the German port city of Hamburg opened three containers listed as containing construction mass, the head of the German Customs Investigation, Rene Matschke, told CNN. At the container test facility, they found that the cans were loaded not only with mass, but also with packages of cocaine.
Investigators found 16,174 kg (35,658 pounds) of cocaine, hidden in 1,728 cans of construction paste. The containers arrived on a ship from Paraguay, via Tangier and Rotterdam, police said.
It was “very disgusting to separate cocaine from dough because it is so sticky,” Matschke told CNN, adding that the drugs would have a market value of several billion euros.
Dutch police said a “risk analysis” carried out prompted German authorities to check the three containers on 12 February.
Dutch authorities said that after the seizure, they started an investigation into the recipient of the Hamburg shipment, which led them to 11 containers on the way from Panama to Antwerp, apparently full of pineapple, mackerel, squid and wood.
Belgian authorities found 7,200 kg (15,873 pounds) of cocaine on Saturday in the container carrying wooden blocks, according to Dutch police.
“The mega-shipments intercepted to the Netherlands together form an absolute record,” Dutch police said in a statement. “Never before has so much cocaine been intercepted at once.”
The authorities said that this was not only the largest cocaine seizure ever made in Europe, but one of the largest isolated seizures in the world.
Rolf Bösinger, Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of Finance of Germany, praised customs officials, saying: “We have managed to seize a record amount of cocaine. With this blow against organized narcotics crime – also thanks to exemplary cooperation with European partner authorities – German customs once again demonstrated their influence in an impressive way. Our strategy of continuing to strengthen mass customs is working. “
Hamburg customs officials move around eight million containers a year.