On Friday 16 December, French customs officers intercepted 148 kilograms of cocaine from a shipment of bananas. The shipment was on route from Surinam to Belgium. The drug bust was made in the port of Jarry on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe when the containers were loaded onto another ship. The shipment of drugs were hidden in the technical space of two refrigerated containers. It is the largest bust in this region of the past 15 years. In November of this year, 50 kilograms of cocaine were discovered in the same port.
Photo from the Twitter page Douane Française
Since January 2014, Food & Agriculture Industries has been taking care of the Surinamese banana industry. The company sells bananas in the EU under the brand names Switie and Bouba. As regards volume, Hein Deprez has the largest share in Surinam. A cooperation exists with the company F.A.I. there, which has an area of 2,000 hectares of bananas in production.
F.A.I. did not recognise itself in the reports of the drug bust, it said in a response.
The Univeg plantations split off from Hein Deprez in 2014. The production locations in South Africa, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Surinam and Turkey are accommodated in a new company, The Fruit Farm Group.