A MIDDLE-AGED couple were shocked to receive 25,000 ecstasy pills in the post after ordering clothing online.

The unnamed couple, who live in the northern Austrian city of Linz, had ordered two dresses online from a clothing store in the Netherlands.

1 A couple in Austria received £450,000 of ecstasy pills after ordering to dresses online Credit: Austria Federal Police

They were having breakfast one morning at home when two parcels arrived, and on opening them they found that one contained three plastic bags of the pink pills - later estimated to be worth £450,000.

The woman, 58, initially thought the class A drugs were decorative stones, but when her husband, 59, looked more closely he became suspicious, and returned the delivery to their local post office.

The package was reported to the narcotics department of the city police, who discovered that its intended destination had been Glasgow, which is 940 miles from Linz.

The force said in a statement: "The originally planned cosy breakfast was quickly over and to the horror of the couple, it turned out that, though one of the packages did contain the two dresses, the second however had 24,800 Ecstasy tablets worth about €500,000 (£442,800).

"In the following investigation it turned out that it was a mail misconduct.

"The package should have been actually sent from the Netherlands to Scotland."

The incident is now being investigated by Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency.

A search warrant was executed out at a property in Glasgow but no arrests have yet been made.

A National Crime Agency spokesman said: "This is a live investigation and enquiries are on-going."

TWELVE YEARS IN JAIL

Ecstasy is a psychoactive substance - meaning it acts on the central nervous system - and has long been popular as a recreational drug, particularly at electronic and dance music events.

Its effects typically include feelings of euphoria and energy that last for three to seven hours followed by a so-called "come down" involving fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

Anyone found guilty of importing "schedule I" or "hard" drugs in the Netherlands faces a prison sentence of three to twelve years.

The Netherlands is one of the world's largest producers of ecstasy and amphetamines, with the government last year having described the situation as "shameful" and vowed to do more to combat it.

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Synthetic drugs with an estimated street value of at least €18.9 billion (£16.8 billion) were produced in the country in 2017, according to police reports.

A police report at the time criticised the government's response to tackling the problem, saying: "Anti-drug efforts only receive priority when friendly heads of state (the US, France) raise the alarm about the drug industry in the Netherlands."

Over 1000 ecstasy pills are discovered in a jigsaw puzzle box in

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