Shipments of cocaine hidden in containers arriving at the port of Gioia Tauro are reaching increasingly substantial volumes. The one discovered in July 2025 by the Guardia di Finanza of Reggio Calabria weighed 417 kilograms and held an estimated street value of around 67 million euros. During a nighttime operation, officers noticed several containers arranged unusually, placed in a poorly lit area near an idle crane. This aroused the suspicion of the officers, who decided to inspect all the containers in that zone. One of them showed clear signs of damage; upon opening it, the officers found sixteen bags containing 385 packages of cocaine.
With this operation, from 1 January to 8 July 2025, customs and finance authorities have seized 2,740 kilograms of pure cocaine at the port of Gioia Tauro, with an estimated value of 439 million euros. The first major seizure of the year occurred on 15 January, when 110 kilograms of cocaine were discovered hidden in a container from North America loaded with paper reels. A couple of weeks later, on 4 February, 27 kilograms of cocaine were found in a container carrying bananas from Ecuador.
Later that month, on 28 February, the volume of cocaine intercepted rose to 778 kilograms, distributed among three containers, again from Latin America. Some of the packages were concealed inside hundreds of sacks of wood pellets, while others had been placed in a concealed compartment built into the engine area of a refrigerated container transporting frozen fish. The largest seizure to date took place on 28 March, when customs and finance officers found 1,170 kilograms of cocaine in eleven containers from Brazil.
The most recent operation prior to the July seizure occurred on 24 June, when, in addition to discovering 228 kilograms of cocaine, officers also arrested two port workers attempting to remove the shipment from the terminal. If operations by the Guardia di Finanza continue at this pace, the total amount of cocaine seized at the port of Gioia Tauro in 2025 could surpass that of the previous year, which stood at around 3.8 tonnes.
