Slovenian customs uncover massive marijuana haul

Slovenian customs officers have seized €2.3 million worth of cannabis in Sežana, a town on the border with Italy. Some 925 kilos of marijuana was found hidden in a shipment of nine pallets of tea from Thailand in late April.

Officers decided to sample the shipment because the importer was a Danish company that had never appeared in customs procedures in Slovenia before, Nedjan Jerman of the Koper unit of the Financial Administration told the press, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

Out of six samples analysed by the Food Safety, Veterinary Sector and Plant Protection Administration, one raised suspicion that it was an illegal drug, which prompted the Financial Administration to call the police.

The Koper Criminal Police inspected the shipment and sent samples to the forensic lab, which confirmed that there was indeed marijuana in the shipment.

Dejan Grandič, the head of the criminal police at the Koper Police Department, said they uncovered a total of 925 kilos of marijuana packed into 300-gramme parcels.

While nobody has been charged yet, the investigation is ongoing, with investigators trying to determine the final recipient of the drugs and the entire logistical network that handled the shipment.

The shipment was addressed to a Dutch recipient but was brought by a lorry from the Netherlands to a customs warehouse in Slovenia.

"This was an unusual route. From the Netherlands to Slovenia, where the goods were to be let in, and then back to the Netherlands," Jerman illustrated.

The police are trying to find the source of the marijuana and to determine whether the declared recipient was also the actual recipient, or whether the company had been abused for drug-smuggling purposes.