Poland seizes record cocaine haul worth half a billion dollars

WARSAW: Police in Poland have seized a record two-ton haul of cocaine worth around half a billion dollars, likely destined for sale across Europe, the Polish prime minister said on Thursday.

"This is the largest smuggling attempt in at least the last 30 years," Premier Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters in Warsaw, adding that the street value of the drugs amounted to some two billion zlotys (470 million euros, $522 million).

The cocaine was likely destined for other countries in the European Union, he said.

Police said they arrested four Colombians, one Iranian living in Germany and two Poles on drugs charges.

Polish customs officers discovered the cocaine mixed with chalk in a shipping container in the northern Polish Baltic Sea port of Gdynia.

Police said they also found a sophisticated laboratory in western Poland linked to the drugs gang.