Cocaine with a street value of up to 50 million euros (£42m) has been discovered at a Coca-Cola plant in France. The drug, hidden in bags among a delivery of orange juice concentrate, arrived in a container from South America.
An investigation is under way in Signes, a village in southern France. The seizure of 370kg of cocaine makes it one of the largest finds on French soil. The prosecutor of Toulon, Xavier Tarabeux, said the delivery “has a street value of 50 million euros” and referred to it as “a very bad surprise”.
Employees at the Coca-Cola plant have been ruled out of any involvement as investigators attempt to trace the origin of the drug. The original Coca-Cola formula, created in 1886 by US pharmacist John Pemberton, is believed to have contained traces of cocaine derived from coca leaf extract.
