Half ton of cocaine branded with Nazi symbol seized in Thessaloniki

Swastika-branded cocaine were seized in Thessaloniki and seven people were arrested as members of a criminal gang that smuggled 585 kilograms of cocaine from Latin America.

The alleged ringleader of the gang, which had been under police surveillance, is a 50-year-old Albanian national and the gang included his wife, his two nieces, and three others.

The gang was broken up after police stopped 21-year-old man in the city and found 239 packages of cocaine weighing 280 kg in total.

Ten minutes later, in another part of the city, a 33-year-old man was apprehended after he tried to escape from police. He had tried to ram a police car and crashed into a school fence. A search of his vehicle yielded 238 packages of cocaine, weighing 277 kg in total.

In a search of the alleged ringleader’s house, police found another 23 packages of cocaine, weighing 26 kg, €7,440 in cash, 7 mobile phones 4 bank cards and other equipment.

Police photographs of the drug haul suggest some of the packages were labelled with Nazi swastikas.

On the pictures Greek police released of the seized drugs and money, it blurred the Nazi symbol.

Last May, Peruvian authorities seized packages of cocaine marked with Nazi swastikas as well as the name “Hitler” at a port in northern Peru, from where would have been shipped to Belgium.