Cocaine haul worth £80m dubbed a 'fantastic seizure'

Cocaine worth an estimated £80m has been confiscated in what officials have described as a "fantastic seizure".

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said officers discovered about a tonne of the Class A drug in a container at London Gateway port near Thurrock, Essex, on Friday.

The drugs were found packaged in a number of holdalls in the container which held a cover load of ceramics and kitchenware, on its way from Panama to Norway, the agency said.

NCA senior investigating officer Paul Orchard said: "Taking this amount of cocaine out of circulation will have deprived the organised criminals involved of millions in profits."

He said the find was "a fantastic seizure by our colleagues at Border Force", adding: "At this point we don't believe the UK was the end destination for this consignment, but we are working with international partners to identify the routing and target those involved.

"Those investigations continue."

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