$900K In Cocaine Headed To Cinnaminson Seized In Philly: Feds

CINNAMINSON, NJ — More than 700 pounds of cocaine — including about 30 pounds that was headed for Cinnaminson — is off the streets after US Customs and Border Protection agents seized a shipment of drugs at a Philadelphia port recently, according to federal officials. Officials called it the largest local seizure of cocaine in 10 years.

Shipments were seized on Nov. 2 and Nov. 28. The Nov. 2 incident began after CBP agents detected something odd in a shipping container in Pennsauken. That container was sent to the agency's Centralized Examination Station in Philadelphia where agents found 256 bricks of cocaine hidden in false walls of bedroom furniture and kitchen cabinets that were in the container. In total, the bricks weighed 321.64 kilograms, just over 709 pounds, and had a street value of about $22 million, CBP officials said.

A nearly 30-pound load of cocaine was found at the same seaport on Nov. 28. That shipment was hidden inside a wooden chest, and had been shipped from Puerto Rico to an undisclosed address in Cinnaminson.
This load weighed in at 13.56 kilograms, and had an estimated street value of about $900,000.

The seizure marks CBP's sixth largest cocaine seizure ever and the Port of Philadelphia's 10th largest seizure or any illicit drug.

"Customs and Border Protection knows that transnational drug trafficking organizations will take advantage of natural disasters, and in this case an island struggling to recovering from a crippling hurricane, to smuggle dangerous drugs to our nation's mainland," Joseph Martella, CBP Acting Area Port Director for the Area Port of Philadelphia, said in a statement. "CBP officers remain ever vigilant to interdict narcotics loads, and we are pleased to have stopped this deadly poison shipment before it could hurt our communities."

"This seizure is an excellent example of how Customs and Border Protection officers leverage imaging technology to detect and intercept an immense amount of cocaine cleverly concealed in a shipment of furniture," Casey Owen Durst, CBP's Field Operations Director in Baltimore, said in a statement. "Narcotics interdiction remains an enforcement priority for Customs and Border Protection, and a mission that we take very serious."

The largest seizure in Philadelphia was in March 2007 when officers found 864 pounds of cocaine that was shipped from the Dominican Republic. Most recently, 363 pounds of cocaine hidden inside boxes of pumpkins and squash from Costa Rica on was seized in September 2015.

Images via US Customs and Border Protection

Story by Max Bennett, Patch Staff