RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Thieving Israel statists rob $500m worth of cocaine from free trading exporters Tue Nov 25, 2008 5:59 pm | |
| Israeli police say they are holding two suspects in an international drug trafficking probe that has led to the seizure of one and a half tonnes of cocaine with a street value of $US500 million.
"The arrest of the Israeli suspects, all from the Haifa region, constitutes the biggest drug bust ever in Israel and one of the biggest worldwide," the Haaretz newspaper said on its website on Tuesday.
A police statement said the massive cocaine seizures were made in the Bahamas, Peru and Spain between October 5 and November 15 as a result of a joint investigation carried out by Israeli authorities and various European and South American police forces.
The drugs were welded inside machine tools and then shipped in containers from Latin America to Europe and the Middle East, the statement said.
Police said a 51-year-old Israeli who is in Peruvian custody was suspected of taking charge of the concealment of the drugs. A welder by profession, he passed himself off as a businessmen on his trips to South America.
The Ynet news website said police were still searching for the suspected Israeli ringleader of the gang, who remains at large. Nicknamed the "referee" as he had previously worked as a football match official, he is believed to have fled to Europe.
So far a total of seven people have been detained in connection with the case, five of them in Peru and two in Israel, Ynet said.
The case had been kept under wraps until Tuesday while Israeli police continued their investigation.
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