Cocaine bag found on cargo ship at Malta Freeport

The Liberian-flagged vessel had sailed from Panama on 17 October, according to Newsbook. Its captain told Maltese authorities that during a routine clean-up on 21 October, crew found a black bag wrapped in a net inside an engine room compartment. Suspecting illegal cargo, they sealed the package so it could be handed to authorities at the next port of call.

That next stop was Malta. On inspection, the bag was found to contain 14 packages of about 1kg each. Police said the haul had a street value of around €1.4 million.

Newsbook reported that the vessel was headed onward to the Port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy, which it described as a port long considered a key node in the smuggling of cocaine to Europe. Even so, the reported facts do not establish where the drugs were meant to leave the vessel, who placed them there, or whether Malta was anything more than the first place the crew could surrender the package.

That part is straightforward enough. The crew found something suspicious, sealed it, and police and customs moved in when the ship reached the freeport. Newsbook also noted that Malta is not the final destination for most vessels stopping there, with about 96% of container traffic handled by the freeport being transhipment business.