It was on the night of December 14 last year that customs detectives discovered two masked and dark-dressed people in Helsingborg's container port. They were arrested and shortly afterwards customs found three full bags, filled to the brim, with South American cocaine.
Now they are sentenced for extremely serious drug offences to prison for seven years and six months by Helsingborg District Court. They are also expelled for life.
Customs sees a clear link between cocaine imports, the Port of Helsingborg and imports of fruit and vegetables from South America. Photo: Swedish Customs
Denies knowledge
Both men deny knowing the contents of the bags. One of them said during the trial that he thought they contained cannabis while the other claims that he did not know at all what the packages contained. Something that the district court did not believe in.
Instead, the district court considered that there is much to suggest that the two men knew exactly what they were doing: It is about two foreign citizens who entered Sweden illegally, broke into both port and container, and then repackaged the drugs and transported them on.
Several major drug crackdowns
Recently, customs staff checked containers from Ecuador in the port of Helsingborg and in two of them maple compartments were found in the floor. There were several smaller packages that turned out to contain 460 kilograms of cocaine.
"This is by far one of the largest total seizures ever made by Swedish Customs," says Erik Friberg, Head of Unit at Swedish Customs' Criminal Division.