ionigeria.com Nigerian Newspaper
With the football fever at the highest due to the ongoing FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia, Police in South America have seized a huge haul of liquid cocaine that was soaked into Colombian football shirts.
Anti-drugs officers in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, seized 70kg of the drug hidden inside a parcel containing 14 official Adidas shirts.
Colombia are competing at the World Cup in Russia after reaching the finals for the second time in a row, following a triumphant final five finish in Brazil.
Anti-narcotics officers checking parcels leaving the air terminal en-route to Europe opened the pack of 14 official Adidas football shirts in a routine search in the early hours of Thursday, according to police.
At first officers found nothing to suggest the package, which had been sent from the city of Barranquilla to Groningen in the Netherlands, contained any illegal substances, a spokesman said.
But after a swab drugs test on one shirt revealed traces of drugs, further tests showed all the garments had all been impregnated with cocaine hydrochloride.
The haul was estimated to have a street value of around £2.8million in the UK.
In a new technique used by smuggling gangs to avoid detection, liquid cocaine is poured into the fabric of clothes, a process which increases the weight of the garment by around 15%.
On the other side, the process is reversed in a lab to extract the drug without losing a single gram.
Coronel Wilson Liza Ramirez, the commander of the Anti-narcotics squad at El Dorado airport, said smugglers were taking advantage of World Cup football fever.
On the other side, the process is reversed in a lab to extract the drug without losing a single gram.
Coronel Wilson Liza Ramirez, the commander of the Anti-narcotics squad at El Dorado airport, said smugglers were taking advantage of World Cup football fever.
“On this occasion, when the football fever around the world is at it’s highest, they took advantage of the passion of fans for our national team.
“It was sad for our officers, themselves football fans, to observe that the shirt that awakens so much joy to a country which lives and feels the World Cup, was contaminated with cocaine.”
He said investigations were continuing to determine who was responsible for posting the shipment of football shirts.
