SLOVAK customs officers seized a large quantity of cocaine as it entered Slovakia, hidden inside stone statuettes of birds, the TASR newswire reported on May 2.
On April 29 customs officers checked an air consignment from Brazil to a Slovak company founded less than a month earlier.
“The company's chief executive is a 45-year-old Slovak citizen who was arrested the same day near the premises of a shipping company at Milan Rastislav Štefánik International Airport in Bratislava,” said the Customs Directorate’s spokesperson, Miroslava Slemenská, as quoted by TASR.
The consignment officially declared eight metal barrels and two wooden containers with processed gemstones and products made of stone.
The shipment did include stone statuettes but 37 of them were hollowed out and an X-ray check detected the cocaine – about 32 kilograms in all.
It was estimated that the volume of seized cocaine could have provided about 550,000 doses and had a street value of about €5.92 million. Slemenská said the arrested man could face life in prison.
9. May 2011 at 0:00 | Compiled by Spectator staff
