It is not just about cocaine or South America. An operation carried out in May 2025 at the port of Genoa by customs and police has shown that Italian ports also serve as a hub for heroin trafficking moving from east to west. In several containers arriving from Iran and officially destined for the Polish capital Warsaw, Italian authorities discovered and seized 140 kilograms of heroin concealed using a smuggling method never previously recorded. The operation, led by the border police in collaboration with the customs agency, took three days and three nights of uninterrupted work.
The shipment was travelling in ten containers filled with more than 60,000 concrete bricks. Initial scans did not reveal any anomalies, but the experience of the Italian officers, also supported by Frontex officials, prompted a manual inspection. The detection of barely visible markings on certain bricks, located in places difficult to access, led to a more in-depth examination. Physically breaking open the bricks revealed the method: packages of heroin, sealed in plastic, had been embedded directly into the cement mix during production, making detection by conventional tools nearly impossible.
The discovery stood out for its technical and organisational complexity. “A new system for concealing the substance, never seen before,” said the authorities. This is a method that requires industrial expertise and meticulous planning across the entire logistics chain, from the manufacturing of the materials to the maritime shipment. According to the investigation, the drug’s true destination was not Poland but northern Europe, where long-established distribution networks exist for trafficking routes originating in the Middle East.
