16 Tonnes of Cocaine - Alter Elbtunnel / Landungsbrücken
On 12 February 2021, customs officers in Hamburg's port opened containers from Paraguay declared as wall filler and found 16 tonnes of cocaine hidden in 1,728 tins, at the time the biggest cocaine seizure Europe had ever seen, with the container cranes in view across the Elbe from the historic Landungsbrücken.
About this place
The St. Pauli Landungsbrücken, a 205 metre stone hall built between 1907 and 1909 with floating pontoons that rise and fall with the tide, is Hamburg's front door to the water, and at its western end the green copper dome of the Old Elbe Tunnel hides lifts that have carried people 24 metres down beneath the river since 1911. From here you look across at the shipyards and downriver to the container cranes of one of Europe's busiest ports, and it was out there, on 12 February 2021, that customs officers made the biggest cocaine bust Europe had ever seen. Five containers from Paraguay, declared as tins of wall filler, had been flagged by a risk analysis. Behind a front layer of genuine putty, three of them held 1,728 tins packed with cocaine: 16,174 kilograms in total, more than Germany had seized in the entire year 2019, with an estimated street value of up to 3.5 billion euros. The paperwork led investigators to a recipient in the Netherlands, to a second container in Antwerp holding another 7.2 tonnes, and to the arrest of a 28 year old Dutchman whose logistics firm was barely a year old. Stand by the river, watch the steel boxes glide past, and you understand why smugglers keep betting on Hamburg.
Key facts
- 16174 kilograms — Cocaine found in three containers from Paraguay on 12 February 2021, at the time the largest single cocaine seizure ever made in Europe.
- 1728 tins — Metal cans declared as wall filler; behind a front layer of genuine putty, each hid roughly nine kilos of cocaine.
- 23 tonnes — Combined total after the same recipient led investigators to a further 7.2 tonnes in a container in Antwerp nine days later.