An Italian police dog named Joel helped officers find three tons of pure cocaine hidden among bananas in the port of Gioia Tauro.
The cocaine was in refrigerated containers among the bananas from Ecuador bound for Armenia.
According to officials, Customs officials inspecting shipments arriving from South America – many of which held exotic fruits – found the cocaine hidden in the containers in various ways.
They included among the fruits, hidden in false bottoms or in external hiding places.
The police said the dog named Joel leaped high and eagerly when they opened the truck’s back doors and pawed furiously at the unloaded boxes to try to move the bananas aside.
The seized cocaine would have fetched an estimated 800 million euros on the street.
