Aldi employees discovered sachets of the white powder known as cocaine worth as much as 28 million dollars in crates of bananas, Prosecutors in the northern city of Rostock said on Thursday.
The banana crates were delivered by ship from Latin America to six stores and a distribution warehouse in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Stores and warehouses in Germany operated by the discount supermarket chain Aldi have come under scrutiny.
“I am very sure that this is the largest amount of cocaine ever found in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,’’ a spokesperson for the criminal investigation office said.
Aldi outlets in other states around the country had also been questioned, but as of midday Thursday, no further cocaine finds had been reported, the Rostock prosecutors said.
In February, prosecutors in the southern state of Bavaria charged eight men with smuggling two tons of cocaine valued at close to 500 million dollars to Germany with banana crates shipped from Ecuador.
The gang operated by breaking into the halls where the fruit are ripened and stealing the crates. (dpa/NAN)
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