Employees at a Swiss Nespresso factory were shocked after discovering about a half-ton of cocaine in a shipment of coffee beans delivered to the plant from Brazil.
According to AFP, workers at the Nespresso plant in Romont, in western Switzerland, notified authorities on Monday after discovering mysterious white powder inside mounds of coffee sacks in shipping containers.
Local police seized more than 500 kilos (1,103 pounds) of cocaine from five containers.
The shipment originated from Brazil, police said, adding the seized cocaine was 80% pure and had a street value of $50 million (48 million euros).
"It appears that all of the drugs were destined for the European market," police said.
The Nespresso plant is a subsidiary of the multinational food and drinks processing conglomerate Nestlé. The Romont plant specializes in producing single-serve coffee capsules.
Bloomberg's top commodity expert Javier Blas recently told Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway in an Odd Lots podcast that in physical trading of commodities, such as agricultural, metals, and energy, traders "don't have to disclose anything."
Several years ago, a much larger shipment of cocaine was seized on a containership owned by JP Morgan Chase. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 20 tons from the ship, worth an estimated street value of $1.3 billion.
If it's Nestlé or a JP Morgan ship, drug cartels have somehow tapped large supply chains owned by large Western companies to smuggle drugs into the developed world.
