Dragged back into the limelight after a number of armed raids on its stores in the north of Portugal, Lidl this week has been found to be stocking … cocaine! Shelf stackers missed it, but an eagle-eyed customer, who apparently was not in the market for cocaine, sounded the alert after coming across the drug at the bottom of a box-load of bananas.
Subsequent searches revealed no less than 237 kilos of pure cocaine hidden among bananas in stores from Minho to Aveiro.
The drug was destined for distribution in Europe, and had only recently arrived via northern Spain. It is believed to have come in from Colombia, on a single palette – the boxes of which were then distributed to multiple stores in Valença, Famalicão, Amarante, Marco de Canaveses e Arrifana and Santa Maria da Feira.
If it hadn’t been for the customer who wanted his bananas as ripe as he could find them, the drug could have fallen into the wrong hands. As it is, police have rounded up €11 million worth of cocaine, and probably enjoyed a few bananas.
Said a spokesman for Lidl, the banana deliveries were “withdrawn promptly from the sales area” of all the affected stores.
