CATANIA, Italy (NBC) – Italian authorities pulled two tons of cocaine in floating packages out of the sea off the coast of Sicily this Monday morning.
The country’s Finance Police said a surveillance plane had spotted the large floating packages with an illumination device near the port of Catania.
The 70 floating waterproof packages were held together by a net.
Finance police in dinghies dragged the floating boxes out of the water and brought them to their headquarters in Catania where they discovered 1,600 packets of cocaine weighing a total of about 4,500 pounds.
Police estimate that the trove, one of the largest confiscated in Italy, is worth more than $400 million.
The Finance Police ships scoured the port of Catania on Monday morning looking for signs of boats that might have been involved in the drug operation.
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