Officers seized more than half a tonne of class A drugs on a boat traveling from Colombia at London Gateway on the Essex coast in south-east England, the National Crime Agency said. Investigators intercepted the shipment, which was bound for the Netherlands, on Tuesday. Hundreds of huge slabs of cocaine were found wedged next to bananas in cardboard boxes. The NCA said the cargo would have a value in the UK of more than £40m once broken up and sold. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Adam Berry, the NCA’s branch operations manager, described the discovery as a “massive blow” to smugglers. He said: “The removal of a batch of this size would be a massive blow to the criminal network involved in this operation, preventing them from making millions of pounds which would have been invested in further crime. “Class A drugs are trafficked by gangs involved in violence and exploitation in our communities. “The NCA is working hard with partners to stop drugs getting this far and seizures like this demonstrate how we can break this link between international drug cartels and street level dealers.”
