SAO PAULO — Brazilian authorities have intercepted what may go down as the largest cocaine seizure in the country’s history, after discovering evidence that drug smugglers had concealed narcotics inside a shipment of lumber in a joint operation involving U.S. and Bolivian officials.
Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service announced that law enforcement officers are now carrying out a forensic examination of the cargo after finding signs that illicit drugs had been embedded within the wood itself.
Acting on shared intelligence, officials ramped up border inspections on June 19 and stopped eight trucks on Sunday that were hauling roughly 260 metric tons of timber.
Drawing on experience from similar past cases using the same concealment technique, the revenue service estimated that narcotics could make up anywhere from 10% to 20% of the total cargo weight. Should the Federal Police analysis confirm those findings, the total cocaine recovered could fall somewhere between 20 and 50 metric tons — a staggering amount that would set a national record.
