Border Force officers have seized a £256million haul of cocaine weighing more than an adult rhinoceros that was disguised as banana boxes in a shipping container.
The three-tonne shipment is the sixth-largest cocaine seizure on record, and means more than five tonnes of the drug worth more than £400million has been confiscated in less than a month.
The interceptions came at London Gateway Port as officers carried out major operations involving high-tech scanners.
Border Security Command Maritime officers intercepted the three-tonne shipment from Panama bound for the Netherlands on February 27.
The smugglers had gone to extreme lengths to avoid detection – replicating the exact shape and weight of banana boxes to hide the drugs among real fruit in a single shipping container.
Specialist officers who opened up the shipment found almost 2,800 packages of cocaine.
A month later, on March 24, cocaine worth an estimated £80 million was seized from a shipping container carrying South American wine.
The shipment was once again picked up using the powerful scanners, and officers discovered 1,102 packages of the class A drug.
Charlie Eastaugh, Director of Maritime and Small Boats, said: 'These results speak for themselves: we are coming after drug smugglers.
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'Last month's huge haul of cocaine – one of the largest seizures on record – is a major setback for organised crime.
'Working alongside our law enforcement and intelligence partners in the UK and overseas, we will continue to clamp down on these criminal networks to keep the public safe.'
Home Office Minister Mike Tapp said: 'Thanks to the excellent work of our dedicated Border Force teams, massive quantities of lethal drugs are out of circulation, costing criminal gangs more than four hundred million pounds in estimated profits.
'Drug seizures are at an all‑time high under this government, and we will not let up in our pursuit of those behind this evil trade.
'We will do whatever it takes to secure our borders, keep our streets safe and protect the public.'
The quantity of drugs seized by Border Force is up 40 per cent year on year, the Home Office said.
Almost 150 tonnes of illegal drugs were seized in the year ending March 2025 – the highest level since records began.
Meanwhile, cocaine‑related deaths are at their highest level for more than 30 years, with 1,279 registered in 2024.
This is 14.4 per cent higher than in 2023 and eleven times higher than 2011 levels.
