Colombian Authorities Discover 20,000 Coconuts Injected With Liquid Cocaine

In the latest installment of the weirdest ways to store-and-transport drugs: Officials at a Colombian port found 20,000 coconuts full of liquid cocaine in a shipment that was headed for Italy.

Vice reports that the coconuts were being kept in 500 canvas bags on a container that was leaving Colombia’s Cartagena port en route to Genoa, Italy. It’s unclear how much cocaine the coconuts were housing; the seized shipment was sent to a laboratory to be tested. They have launched a probe into the coconuts’ origin and who was going to collect them in Italy.

“Upon inspection, it was established that the water in the tropical fruit had been exchanged for liquid cocaine,” the Colombian national prosecutor’s office said in a press release. Transporting cocaine by dissolving it in water is a routine smuggling practice.

Smugglers have taken to injecting fruits with cocaine in recent years. In 2017, Madrid authorities seized fresh coconuts filled with 60 grams of liquid cocaine, and the year prior, Hong Kong investigators found dragonfruit injected with the same drug.

And as far as other weird ways to smuggle drugs: Earlier this month, federal authorities arrested a Rhode Island man when they came upon over a kilogram (or 2.2 pounds) of cocaine stored in an old TV. The 25-year-old suspect was later charged with conspiracy to possess 500 grams or more of cocaine with intent to distribute.