In August 2026, Guardia di Finanza (Finance Police) and Agenzia delle Dogane (Customs Agency) uncovered drug shipments at two ports on the Tyrrhenian Sea, totalling 150 kilogrammes. The operations were carried out in Livorno and Civitavecchia and also led to the arrest of a Bulgarian lorry driver. The first seizure, involving 65 kilogrammes of cocaine, concerned a container from South America unloaded at the Tuscan port. The second, involving more than 85 kilogrammes of marijuana and cocaine, took place inside a semi-trailer that had arrived in Civitavecchia on a ferry from Barcelona.
At the port of Livorno, officers from the provincial command and officials from the Sezione Antifrode dell’Ufficio delle Dogane e dei Monopoli Toscana 2 identified the suspicious cargo through risk analysis of freight traffic entering the port. The container, a refrigerated unit used to transport bananas arriving from Ecuador, was first subjected to X-ray scanning and then checked by Guardia di Finanza dog units. The checks revealed a compartment built near the refrigeration motor housing, shielded with lead plates to evade inspections. Inside were 57 blocks of cocaine wrapped in aluminium foil, weighing a total of 65 kilogrammes. The shipment, whose street value is estimated at about €20 million, was sampled and analysed by order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Livorno, which coordinated the investigation, confirmed the seizure and ordered the destruction of the substance at an incineration plant.
In the same period, a second seizure was carried out at the port of Civitavecchia by officers from the local Guardia di Finanza group and officials from Ufficio Adm Lazio 3 , who were conducting checks on passengers and vehicles disembarking from a ferry from Barcelona. Risk analysis of lorry drivers arriving at the port led officers to inspect an industrial vehicle whose driver appeared wary during document checks. Dog units from the Fiumicino Group, with drug-detection dogs Ice and Frida, found a false bottom built into the floor of the semi-trailer. Inside were 53 vacuum-packed bags of marijuana and 26 blocks of cocaine, weighing more than 85 kilogrammes in total and with an estimated value of more than €3 million. The driver was arrested and taken to Civitavecchia prison.
