According to Abel Chaves, the president of the National Chamber of Producers and Exporters of Pineapple (Canapep), pineapple exporters are concerned about the frequency with which authorities have found cocaine in pineapple shipments in the last few days.
In the last two weeks a total of 245 kilos of cocaine were detected in three shipments arriving at ports in the United States, Spain, and one destined for Ireland.
"The damage that this is doing to the country’s image and to the sector is big. The country can lose competitiveness over this. The countries that import pineapple from Costa Rica might decide to scan the shipments of pineapple for security reasons, and this could result in an additional cost for the industry,” he said.
Chaves was asked about this scenario on Tuesday, after US authorities discovered 45 kilos of cocaine in the corrugated bottom of 20 cardboard boxes containing pineapples from San Carlos, which arrived in the state of Delaware, United States, on Wednesday, August 22.
On Sunday, producers learned that Spanish authorities had found 67 kilos of cocaine, which had been smuggled in pineapples that had been emptied and filled with compact cylinders of cocaine. The fruit was discovered in MercaMadrid, the main market for fruits and vegetables in Madrid. Each pineapple stored 800 grams to one kilo of the narcotic.
Two weeks ago, on August 14, the Costa Rican authorities found 133 kilograms of cocaine, which were hidden among a load of pineapples that was bound for Ireland.
Chaves proposes two measures to deal with this issue:
The first measure, as they informed the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), is to apply an on-site inspection program that stopped being applied by the previous administration. The second measure, is to have a stricter record of habitual and casual exporters.
“Costa Rica now has a number of competing countries. This isn’t helping us at all. If this continues to happen, I believe that few importers will want to receive pineapple from Costa Rica. We are losing competitiveness and the leadership we’ve had for many years," Chaves said.
Costa Rica ships out 2,000 containers of pineapple every week.
"We put ourselves at the orders of the MAG, Procomer (Foreign Trade Promoter) and Comex (Ministry of Foreign Trade) so that we can work together to improve all these inspection mechanisms to avoid this problem,” he said.
Source: nacion.com