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CBP Finds $10 Million Of Cocaine At Port Of Baltimore, Making It The Largest Seize In Port’s History

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Lexi Lonas Contributor
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U.S. Customs and Border Patrol found $10 million worth of cocaine at the Port of Baltimore on June 18, making it the largest seize of cocaine the port has ever seen, according to CBP.

CBP announced on Tuesday they found 125 bricks of cocaine in black bags inside a container of beach chairs. The 333 pounds of cocaine had been sent from China through Panama.

The cocaine was found by Homeland Security Investigation’s Border Enforcement Security Task Force. The task force is made up of CBP officers, HSI agents, and state and local officers.

The final destination of the shipment was to go to an address somewhere in Maryland, but no arrests have been made yet. CBP says HSI special agents are still investigating.

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“It could devastate this city,” Assistant Port Director for Tactical Operations Patricia Scull told CBS Baltimore. “We don’t know where the drugs themselves were destined for, $10 million street value drugs hit the market, that’s a lot of damage it could cause.”

This seizure broke the previous record from April 2007 when CBP found 311 pounds of cocaine at the port, CBP said.

This cocaine bust, as large as it was, paled in comparison to the amount of cocaine found in Philadelphia last week. Last Tuesday, 16.5 tons of cocaine with a street value of $1 billion was found at South Philadelphia Port. (RELATED: Feds Seize 16.5 Tons Of Cocaine In Historic Philadelphia Drug Bust)

On an average day, CBP finds 4,657 pounds of narcotics across the country, CBP said.

“CBP officers remain vigilant at our nation’s ports of entry to significantly impact transnational criminal organizations that push dangerously unsafe consumer goods or dangerous drugs,” Casey Durst, CBP’s Director of Field Operations in Baltimore said.