Agents find cocaine in cacao shipment

SANTO DOMINGO (AP):

Anti-drug agents in the Dominican Republic have uncovered a load of cocaine being smuggled out of the country amid a shipment of cacao, the raw ingredient in chocolate.

National Drug Control Agency spokesman Robert Lebron said yesterday that the 198 packets of cocaine were found in a container destined for Italy. The weight and value of the load was not yet available. Lebron said the container had been checked and sealed before agents returned and uncovered the drugs in the port of Caucedo.

The port east of Santo Domingo is the largest in the country and the only one with X-ray equipment for scanning containers. Dominican authorities have made record seizures of cocaine in each of the past three years, including several significant ones at the port.

Full caption: In this photo made available by the Spanish police Saturday, March 23, 2013, police stand guard over bags containing cocaine at the harbour of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The interior ministry says Spanish, Portuguese and British police have boarded in the Atlantic a ship that was loaded with nearly two tons of cocaine destined for sale in Europe, and arrested nine people.