“A cocaine glut”
Coke in the supermarket: Police confiscate drug packages in eleven stores in Berlin and Brandenburg
The big find came as little surprise to the police: numerous packages of cocaine were found in East German supermarkets – mostly hidden in banana crates.
According to their own statements, the officials were notified by branch employees in the morning. Accordingly, the packages were in banana boxes among the fruits. According to media reports, Lidl stores were particularly affected. Lidl in Germany is “in communication with the relevant authorities regarding the incident,” said a Lidl spokeswoman upon request. In view of the ongoing proceedings, no further information is available.
Police: “We have been experiencing an absolute glut of cocaine for years”
Meanwhile, the police union was not surprised by the find. It’s not surprising that “every now and then a delivery gets lost and ends up in the supermarket, especially since fruit boxes are often used anyway,” said the Berlin state head of the police union, Stephan Weh, to the German Press Agency on Thursday. “We’ve been experiencing an absolute glut of cocaine for years.”
“The price on the street is stable, the purity level continues to rise,” explained GdP regional chief Weh. The respective networks of smugglers and dealers took losses into account. “They are bearable when you look at the overall profit,” emphasized Weh.
Finds like this are not isolated cases: In September last year, the police found around 500 kilograms of cocaine in Groß Kreutz, west of Potsdam. A wholesaler of fruit and vegetables informed the police “after suspicious-looking packages were found in the load when banana boxes were delivered,” a police spokeswoman said. According to police, the bananas served as camouflage for the cocaine delivery.