TRIESTE – A drug shipment hidden inside a truck unloaded at the Port of Trieste was intercepted by the Guardia di Finanza and the Italian Customs Agency. Twenty kilos of opium were seized and the driver was arrested.
The operation was carried out by officers of the Trieste Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza together with officials from the Agency for Customs and Monopolies in the customs area of the Port of Trieste. During checks on an articulated truck arriving from Iraq, shipped from the Turkish port of Pendik (Istanbul), anomalies were found in the vehicle’s exhaust system.
In particular, the heavy vehicle’s catalytic converter appeared unusually clean compared to normal conditions after long road journeys. The detail prompted a more in-depth technical inspection. Inside the catalytic converter, officers found a cylindrical metal container holding over twenty kilos of opium paste, wrapped in layers of cellophane and carbon paper. The driver, a 44-year-old Iranian citizen, attempted a brief escape but was stopped. He was arrested on charges of importing narcotics into Italy. On the order of the judicial authority, he was transferred to the “Ernesto Mari” remand prison in Trieste. The drugs and the articulated vehicle were seized.
Investigations are also under way in other European countries, with the support of international cooperation, to trace the senders and intended recipients of the illicit shipment. The operation forms part of the systematic checks carried out daily at the Trieste port, a strategic hub for cargo flows in the North Adriatic.
