NEW ORLEANS – Customs agents discovered an extra ingredient in a shipment of Colombian coffee: nearly a half-ton of cocaine.
U.S. Customs officer Troy Simon said Thursday it was his agency's biggest cocaine find at the Port of New Orleans since more than two tons turned up in a transformer shipment about 10 years ago.
He said officers opened the shipping container Monday after a gamma-ray scan showed squarish shapes on top of the rounded burlap bags of coffee beans. They turned out to be 15 duffel bags.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Virginia Dabbs says they held 400 packages of cocaine weighing a total of 994 pounds.
The case was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Administration; no arrests have been made.
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