BUCHAREST, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The Romanian police seized over 1,000 kilograms of high-purity cocaine in the Danube Delta, with a black market value of some 340 million U.S. dollars, the country's anti-organized crime authorities announced Tuesday.
The police found on Friday a total of 1,040 kilograms of the drug in an overturned boat and in its surrounding waters near the beach of Sf. Gheorghe, the southernmost estuary of the Danube, according to the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT).
DIICOT chief Felix Banila told the briefing on Tuesday that the police had previously traced the source of a one-kilogram-package of cocaine dropped from a van and finally found the bulk of the drug.
"Following investigations into the cargo trace, Romanian investigators found....packages wrapped in rubber bottles with the same logo, content and way of packing with the lost package from the van two days before," he said.
Drugs were brought with armored cars in Bucharest and the purity of cocaine was 90 percent, showed the result of the analysis.
DIICOT determined that the drugs originated in South America and were transported to Romania by sea.
Two Serb citizens were detained in Tulcea and the police believed that some Romanians also participated in the case.
Because of the geographical location, Romania forms part of the Balkan route for drug smuggling. Cocaine is shipped from South America in large quantities through the ports of the Black Sea and is mainly intended for markets outside the country.
