Police have arrested an undertaker who was travelling on the A77 in a hearse loaded with 675 kilos of chemicals to make drugs.

The arrest was made in May but has only now been made public, local broadcaster Omroep Brabant reported.

Officers were already keeping an eye on the car when it was travelling on the A15 between Rotterdam and Nijmegen because it appeared to be overloaded. After following the hearse to a petrol station near Beugen, Noord-Brabant, they stopped the car and found its cargo.

Two men were arrested, one of whom the owner of the car, a 38-year-old undertaker.

At a later search of his business premises in Rotterdam, police found a drugs lab and half a kilo of cocaine.

The undertaker has since appeared in court and has been remanded in custody. His co-driver, a 50-year-oold also from Rotterdam, has been released pending legal proceedings.