Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 3 -- On February 1, the Spanish Ministry of Interior said that the police found 71 kilograms of cocaine hidden among roses while checking a batch of roses at the cargo center of Madrid Airport.
According to the statement from the Ministry of Interior, the cocaine was divided and hidden in 60 boxes of roses. Following this, the police traced the recipients of the roses and arrested a total of seven suspects in the Madrid area, the province of Murcia, and the province of Valencia.
The 60 boxes of roses were sent from Colombia. The police initially determined that this drug smuggling incident was carried out by the same drug trafficking gang responsible for a drug trafficking case in 2009. In that year, the gang tried to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine hidden in polyethylene products into Spain via sea freight but was caught upon arrival.
According to AFP, over the years, Madrid has been a transit point for cocaine smuggling from South America to Europe. Hiding drugs in regular cargo and transporting them across continents is a common tactic used by drug gangs.
Earlier this month, the Spanish police found 162 kilograms of cocaine in a shipment of 20 tons of bananas imported from Ecuador. The drug traffickers mixed hollow plastic fake bananas with the real ones and then hid the drugs inside the fake bananas.