Border Force officers at London Gateway Port in Essex intercepted an almost 3-tonne shipment of banana boxes containing cocaine worth an estimated £232 million. The drugs were discovered hidden among bananas from South America last Thursday.
Nine arrests and ongoing investigation
Nine men were arrested in connection with the seizure and have been released on bail. The National Crime Agency (NCA) is leading the investigation.
Dave Phillips, NCA senior investigating officer, said: 'This is a very significant seizure which has deprived the organised crime group behind it of huge profits.'
Impact on organised crime
Phillips added: 'That is money that cannot be ploughed back into further crime. Class A drugs wreck lives, they are toxic and can devastate our communities.'
The NCA will continue to combat the threat of class A drugs with partners at home, such as Border Force, and further upstream in source and transit countries.
Context of previous seizures
In February 2024, the NCA and Border Force made what is believed to be the biggest seizure of class A drugs in the UK, finding almost six tonnes of cocaine at Southampton Port hidden in a cargo of bananas from South America.
In October 2025, the Home Office said more than £1 billion of the drug had been intercepted in a 'record-breaking' summer.
Traffickers have used increasingly clever methods to hide drugs in shipments, with one group hiding substances in baby wipes. In 2022, US Customs and Border Patrol agents at the Laredo-Colombia Solidarity Bridge in Texas seized a shipment of cocaine disguised as baby wipes, discovering 1,935 packages containing 1,532.6 pounds of the drug.
