Customs officials in Rotterdam port have seized four tonnes of cocaine hidden in a container from Ecuador.

The cocaine, divided into 4,425 separate packages, has a street value of over €300m, the public prosecution department said in a statement. The container was destined for a fruit company in Rotterdam and came to the Netherlands via Antwerp.

In February, police in Hamburg and Antwerp seized 23 tonnes of cocaine destined for the Netherlands. The first consignment, totalling 16.1 tonnes, had been disguised as tins of wall plaster from Paraguay.  The second shipment was hidden among pineapple, squid, wood and mackerel from Panama.

Customs officers in the Netherlands and abroad prevented over 115,000 kilos of cocaine from reaching the country in 2020.