The biggest ever seizure of heroin in the UK has been made by investigators who found the drug hidden among towels and bathrobes on a container ship docked in Suffolk.

Nearly 1.3 tonnes of the class A drug, worth more than £120 million at street level, was recovered from the vessel after it docked in Felixstowe last Friday, en route to Antwerp.

The record haul came just three weeks after an almost identical seizure was made in the same port, when heroin worth £40 million was found amid a consignment of bathroom towels and robes on a ship also bound for Antwerp.

As in the previous operation, officers from Border Force and the National Crime Agency removed the drugs then returned the container to the vessel and allowed it to continue on its journey to Belgium, under surveillance.

The container was driven by lorry to a warehouse in Rotterdam, where four people were arrested as they unloaded the consignment.

It took border force officers in Felixstowe nearly six hours to remove the drugs, which had been stitched into towels in 1kg blocks.

Matt Horne, NCA deputy director, said: “This is a record heroin seizure in the UK and one of the largest ever in Europe.