More than 50 bales of cocaine, the largest drug bust at Port Newark in 25 years, were loaded onto a cargo ship in Chile, making stops at South American countries before being confiscated at the New Jersey port of entry, law enforcement officials said.

The approximately 1.6 tons of cocaine confiscated at Port Newark on Feb. 28 were loaded onto a cargo ship in Chile, before making stops in Peru, Colombia, Panama and the Bahamas, said officials from Homeland Security Investigations New Jersey and New York, in an email. The drug bust was the largest of its kind since 1994.

"Undetermined as to where the cocaine originated, but the shipping container (including its cargo) originated and was loaded onto the vessel in Chile," said HSI New Jersey and New York officials, in the email.

As of Wednesday afternoon, no arrests had been made and HSI was investigating if the drugs originated in Chile or elsewhere, officials said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized the drugs and gave them to HSI Newark and New York, which led the investigation.

The massive shipment of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $77 million, was found stacked in large bales, sealed in multi-colored sacks, in the back of a shipping container, the officials said. The 1.6 tons of cocaine found were not hidden, with officers able to see the drugs as soon as they opened the container doors, HSI officials said.

The drugs were discovered as part of an operation triggered by information from the UK National Crime Agency. Using the information, officers from HSI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and five other law enforcement agencies boarded the ship and searched a shipping container. Field tests of the powder in the bales proved it was cocaine.

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The multi-agency effort to seize drugs at ports of entry was meant to intercept them before they're distributed throughout the country, preventing the drugs from ever reaching the streets, said CBP, in a statement. Cocaine, much like heroin, is often cut with fentanyl, a powerful opioid that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine and often causes fatal overdoses.





The cocaine seizure contradicts President Donald Trump’s claims that hard drugs do not enter through ports of entry. He has often cited drug smuggling as one of the country's biggest problems and a border wall as its only solution. During his speech last month, in which he declared a national emergency, to secure more funds for a border wall, Trump reiterated his claims.

"A big majority of the big drugs, the big drug loads don’t go through ports of entry,” Trump said during his speech. "They can’t go through ports of entry."

In the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year, 90 percent of heroin seized along the border, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl was caught trying to be smuggled in at legal crossing points, according to CBP statistics.

The February cocaine bust is the largest at Port Newark this century, only rivaled by a 1994 bust, when 3 tons of cocaine were found at the Newark port, reported The New York Times.

Reporting contributed by Alan Gomez, staff writer for USA Today

Email: torrejon@northjersey.com