Someone keeps trying to smuggle cocaine into Norway, hidden in more boxes of bananas from South America. Customs agents and police seized 147 kilos of it after being getting another call from Norwegian fruit and vegetable wholesaler Bama last month.
Bama workers had just received a new shipment of the bananas and found some “irregularities” while monitoring the boxes with X-ray equipment. Customs agents soon arrived with dogs trained to sniff out the drugs, and they found cocaine in nine of the boxes. It amounted to an estimated 600,000 doses and Tim Gurrik, divisional director at the Norwegian Customs agency (Tolletaten), estimated its value at NOK 170 million.
“A seizure of this size demands a high degree of economic and organizational muscle that only large criminal networks have the capability of carrying out,” stated Gurrik in the agency’s own account of the cocaine seizure released on Monday, a month after the drugs were found on April 3.
It’s the latest in a series of such seizures in Oslo, some of which extend back several years and also involved banana boxes. This one wasn’t nearly as big as the more than 2.3 tons of cocaine seized during the course of 2023, but agents still view drug smuggling into Norway as high.
“We see that the criminal networks behind the smuggling are willing to take risks and are adaptable,” Gurrik said. In this case, the bananas are believed to have arrived by ship from South America to Antwerp, where they were placed on a truck that had driven into Norway from Sweden.
“There are several indications that the Nordic countries make up their own market for cocaine,” Gurrik said. There’s no doubt that cocaine use in Norway has risen dramatically in recent years, in line with the country’s affluence.
The case is now under investigation by the Oslo Police District. Arvid Utby, leader of the police district’s section responsible for intelligence gathering and investigation, said “thorough” technical and tactical probes had already been carried out at both the national and international levels.
“These cases have high priority and give us important information,” Utby said, “about the criminal networks involved and the threats they entail.” He said there are indications that the cocaine was supposed to have been extracted from the banana boxes at the harbour in Antwerp, based on information from the Norwegian police’s cooperation with Europol and Belgian authorities. At the same time, it can’t be ruled out that the cocaine was meant for the Norwegian market.
“We know that cocaine is smuggled into Norway in containers, and Norway is an attractive market for cocaine,” Utby said. Both the customs inspectors and police hailed Bama’s call and cooperation in the case, and stressed that they have no information that employees at Bama are involved in the case.
Bama spokesperson Pia Gulbrandsen said it was important for Bama to “secure a safe value chain,” that they had good cooperation with both customs and the police, and that “our highest priority is to take care of our employees and make sure they’re safe on the job.”
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
