Man Finds Cocaine Hidden in His Nesquik

A Spanish man got more than he bargained for when he bought a container of Nesquik chocolate powder and found that the tub contained a bundle of cocaine worth nearly $14,000.

The man is now threatening to sue the grocery store where he bought the chocolate powder, claiming that he has suffered “moral damage” because of the find and the press coverage surrounding it. He also claims that he is afraid that he will now become a target for drug traffickers.

The incident happened in Zaragoza, an area of northeast Spain, according to The Independent. Authorities believe that someone stashed the 250-gram packet of cocaine in the container at the grocery store. Nothing was found from security camera footage in the store, but police were able to get fingerprints off the packet and are working to identify the culprit.

The man who bought the Nesquik has not been identified. Police say he noticed that the container’s lid looked like it had been tampered with. When he opened it, he found the drugs.

But this wasn’t the only time that cocaine recently wound up in unexpected places in Europe. Last week, more than $60 million worth of cocaine washed up on an English beach. Local police, coast guard and border officials were trying to track how 360 kilograms of the drug ended up on the beach, but they were hopeful that the loss of so much product would put a dent in the drug trade in England.

“We are now working with Border Force, the Coastguard Agency and Norfolk Police to try and establish how the bags ended up where they did, however it is extremely unlikely that this was their intended destination,” said Matthew Rivers, from the border investigation team of the UK’s National Crime Agency. “This is obviously a substantial seizure of class A drugs, and its loss will represent a major blow to the organized criminals involved.”

Cocaine use is more common in Europe than in the rest of the world, and particularly high in the United Kingdom and Spain, according to a 2016 report by Vice. To meet demand, drug traffickers are trying new ways to smuggle cocaine into Europe, which might explain why the drug has turned up in strange places recently.

"Cocaine traffickers are diversifying their routes and methods," Dr. Axel Klein, an international drug trade expert from the EU's Cocaine Route Programme, told Vice.