UK suspects’ drugs logo points to bigger racket

An undercover police officer working in a joint Greek-American drug operation has submitted evidence indicating that four British nationals arrested in Thessaloniki for attempting to bring 654 kilograms of cocaine into Greece from Italy may have connections to a much bigger racket.

According to the case file, the four Britons arrested in the northern port city on June 9 as the intended recipients of the drugs seized in Italy inadvertently admitted a connection to a 2.4-ton shipment of cocaine that had been intercepted in April and was packaged in the same way as theirs. The drugs in both cases were in parcels stamped with the number 23, which also appeared in another drug bust in Greece in May, in which a fifth – seemingly unconnected – Briton was arrested.

The four suspects are also linked to 297 kilograms of the same drug – in similar packaging – found in a shipment of bananas from Latin America.