Drugs in wooden boards

137 kilos of coke: investigators put a stop to the cartel

Discovered in the X-ray: the cocaine was hidden in milled-out chambers inside the wooden floorboards, which investigators seized.(Bild: LPD NÖ)

(Bild: LPD NÖ/Topf)

Local investigators have achieved a "historic success" in the fight against narcotics: nine suspects have been arrested and a drug laboratory in the district of Baden has been dismantled. 

The "snow" is worth around 14 million euros, which Europe's authorities - as reported by the "Krone" - took out of circulation. The operation was successfully carried out by drug squad officers from the Lower Austrian State Criminal Police Office together with the Federal Criminal Police Office and German, Czech and Slovakian colleagues.

"Historic success"
During a routine inspection in the port of Hamburg, 17 pallets with 115 wooden planks were discovered on a freighter from Bolivia. The planks contained packages of cocaine. The drugs were seized and the container was sent on - under strict surveillance.

The cocaine was hidden in the wooden boards.(Bild: LPD NÖ/Topf)

"Everything the police and the Code of Criminal Procedure had to offer was used and exhausted," says LKA chief Stefan Pfandler. Four Serbs aged between 33 and 65 were tracked down and arrested in Vienna and Hainburg. They have already been sentenced to several years in prison. In addition to five other offenders (four Serbs and one Austrian), a drug laboratory in Kottingbrunn (district of Baden) was also unearthed. This is where the cocaine base was prepared for sale. A tenth suspect is on the run.

The investigators also caught a 50-year-old "drug baroness". She is allegedly responsible for smuggling 50 kilograms of cocaine for five million euros. "The seizure was a historic success", said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner.