BRUSSELS
A stash of cocaine worth €50 million and weighing 1,000kg has been retrieved by Belgian officials off the coast of Ostend, Belgian police officials have said.
The haul -- contained in 16 drug packages found by a fishing vessel in the North Sea about 20 kilometres off the Belgian coast -- is believed to have been thrown into the sea by South American drug traffickers as they test new means of smuggling drugs into Europe, police said Monday.
Antwerp Prosecutor's Office spokesman Ken Witpas said: "As the chance of getting caught in the ports increases, criminals are trying out other, sometimes novel, methods in order to avoid the classic controls.
"More and more traffickers are trying it and this is a growing phenomenon for us."
- Hackers recruited
The find is the third drug-smuggling operation uncovered by the police in less than three months.
The port of Antwerp is known to be a major route for drug smugglers.
Belgian and Netherlands police uncovered a massive drug operation in 2013 in which traffickers recruited hackers to break into the systems of shipping companies and control the movement and location of containers.
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