119 kilos of cocaine were found and seized yesterday during a police operation in Romanat, Durres.

The narcotics were found inside a truck transporting a container loaded with bananas from ‘Bana King’ company, that had just left the Port of Durres and was heading to a warehouse in Vaqarr.

The police have taken 3 men into custody, Gezim Kalaja and Hasan Saliuhu, who were driving the vehicle as well as Marson Murataj, the administrator of an export-import firm linked to several countries in Latin America.

Investigations concluded that the container had passed all transit checks at a port in Italy, where Italian law enforcement had noticed that a stamp was missing, after which they conducted a quick search and found out that several banana containers were missing.

In any case, the container had then arrived at the port of Durres, where after passing through customs and a scanner check, it was cleared by local authorities who hadn’t noticed and discrepancies.

On its way to the area known as Romanat in Durres, the truck was stopped abruptly by several unidentified individuals, who searched the back of the truck by force and quickly left.

Representatives of the banana importing company called the cops immediately after, due to fear of having run into robbers.

Investigations are still underway to find out the identity of the men who stopped the truck on its way to the warehouse in Romanat, as well as other possible links with the exotic fruits company in Latin America, which is the most probable origin of the narcotics.