Police in western Germany have made a huge large drug bust on the outskirts of Cologne, where 384kg (847lbs) of cocaine were found hidden in 26 banana boxes. 

The seizure occurred on Saturday afternoon (April 8) in a storage room in Leverkusen-Opladen, where the illicit substance was stored in 1kg (2.2lbs) bags inside the boxes.

Cologne Police reported the bananas originally came from Ecuador and arrived at the Port of Hamburg before their transfer to Leverkusen. A GPS transmitter was found in one of the boxes, which has led investigators to believe drug traiffickers hoped to use the device to find the narcotics more quickly in warehouses.

According to estimates on black market prices released by Havocscope.com, the estimated price per gram of the drug in Germany is around US$86.9, which would mean the recent bust could have been valued at us$33.4 million (€31.5 million).

This is significantly larger than a similar seizure last year in the German port of Bremerhaven, and even larger in volume terms than a massive bust in Berlin in 2015. 

www.freshfruitportal.com