A new record was made this week at the Port of Baltimore. Federal agents said they seized $10M worth of cocaine at the Baltimore port in a shipping container, marking a new record in cocaine seizures in Baltimore since 2007. According to WBAL TV, the feds discovered 333 pounds of cocaine at the Port of Baltimore inside of a shipping container filled with beach chairs.
"It was a standard shipping container. Standard 40-foot shipping container that you would see at any sea port of entry," Patricia Scull, assistant port director of tactical operations, said. "The goods were packaged properly in containers nice and neat on palettes, just like any container would be, but at the back of the container when you just open the doors, four large duffel bags full of bricks of cocaine."
Federal authorities said that the container was on route to an address in Maryland, although it's unclear if it was meant to be shipped to a location in Baltimore.
The seizure comes just days after 16 tons of cocaine valued at $1B was discovered at the Port of Philadelphia. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been on alert ever since that bust. The container and the route it took to get to Baltimore raised suspicion among authority figures.
"This container, in particular, sat in the Port of Panama for over a week, big reason for a high narcotics target value for us as well as the goods made in China for intellectual property rights violations -- that targeting based off of those two reasons as well as intelligence, we pulled it in," Scull said.
The investigation continues.
