AT – The Tax and Customs Service seized 240 kilos of cocaine in the port of Sines, Setubal district, hidden in a container brought from the American continent and destined for another European country, as it became known this Monday.
In a statement, AT explained that the seizure was carried out by the Sines Customs Delegation of the Setubal Customs Office at the container port of that city on the Alentejo coast.
The drug was hidden “in a normal cargo of lubricating oils.”
“The legitimate cargo was packed into a 20-foot container, which was unloaded in Sines for the purpose of transfer to another vessel and transportation to its final destination,” he added.
The detention was based on the controls that AT customs services “systematically carry out on goods that ‘touch’ national territory, regardless of whether they remain within the territory of the European Union or are destined for another destination.”
Based on the local risk analysis, the container was selected for non-intrusive inspection using scanning equipment and a decision was made to open it.
According to AT, “the presence of sports bags hidden among the oil drums” was immediately confirmed, representing “the use of the ‘robbery’ method.”
The packages “contained a product that was immediately subjected to a chemical test that allowed the product to be classified as a drug, specifically cocaine,” he said.
The “robbery” method, authorities explained, relied on “abusing legitimate cargo in a legitimate vehicle to obtain a shipment of drugs hidden there and ready for rapid removal from the container for delivery to its destination.”
The seized drugs were handed over to the Judicial Police (SP), which is the criminal police body with exclusive investigative powers in this case.
“This confiscation, carried out on national territory by the AT Customs Inspection and Surveillance Department, represents, along with the arrests carried out by the Judicial Police or other organisations carried out in collaboration with AT, another serious damage to the criminal organisations involved,” the organisation guaranteed.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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