Police discovered several packages of cocaine in various supermarkets in Berlin and Brandenburg on Thursday morning. A total of four markets in different districts of Brandenburg and seven markets in Berlin were affected, as a spokeswoman for the police in Potsdam announced. A rapid test in the afternoon confirmed the cocaine suspicion. The police initially did not provide any further details about the location of the supermarkets. The officials also left the amount of narcotics unknown. Both the Berlin and Brandenburg police as well as customs are involved in the operation.
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.
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 discovered in the load when crates of bananas were delivered,” a police spokeswoman said. According to police, the bananas served as camouflage for the cocaine delivery.
