Montenegro seizes over a tonne of cocaine in bananas shipment

Montenegro police said on Friday they had seized more than a tonne of cocaine, their biggest ever drug bust, concealed in a shipment of bananas, and that two people were arrested.

The raid was carried out in Mojanovici, a suburb of the capital Podgorica in the tiny Adriatic country, the national police said in a statement on their Twitter account.

“Montenegrin police and the customs department have seized 1,205 packs of cocaine…in a shipment of bananas… with a total weight of over one tonne,” it said.

Montenegro, a NATO member, and former Yugoslav republic is also a European Union membership candidate but before it joins the bloc it must root out organised crime and corruption.

“What a feat of Montenegrin police. We are doing what we have pledged: Montenegro will not be a country of crime,” Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic said in a tweet.

In recent months, Montenegro and neighbouring Serbia, which also aspires to join the EU, have stepped up their fight against organised crime, arresting dozens on suspicion of murders, abductions, drug smuggling, and plots to kill rivals and state officials.