Otologicals

Italian authorities have seized some 300 kilograms of cocaine from a Greek commercial vessel at the port of Genoa, Italian media reports said on Friday.

According to sources, the Malta-flagged Dimitris C container ship stopped at ports in Colombia and Spain before reaching Italy. The drugs were found in 20 plastic bags.

A ton and a half of cocaine, hidden in a bag of chocolate powder, was captured at an Ecuador airport before it was sent to Europe, authorities said.

"This 1500kg of cocaine mixed with chocolate products was about to be sent to Austria," the police wrote on twitter after the capture of the drug at Guayaquil.

Authorities in Serbia have arrested three Australian citizens as part of a joint investigation with Australian police in connection with the second-largest seizure of cocaine in Australia's history.

The three men were arrested in a Belgrade hotel lobby on January 18 with a bag containing 620,00 euros ($784,000) and thousands of dollars in various currencies from Asia and Europe.

Thy are suspected of being members of an organized crime group that is involved in cocaine smuggling.

According to the the MUP, the arrests were carried out in cooperation with the Organized Crime Prosecution, and came after an investigation that lasted nine months, during which the Serbian police worked with Australian authorities.

Drivers competing in the Dakar Rally were greeted with wreaths made of coca leaves, which help combat altitude sickness and are also used as the raw ingredient in cocaine, as they entered the Andean country of Bolivia on Jan. 11.

Nine foreign backpackers, including five from France, were rushed to hospital in various states of “agitated delirium” after ingesting a travel sickness drug they mistook for cocaine and falling seriously ill, Australian authorities and reports said.

After one of the judges from the Trial Chamber in the marathon case against alleged drugs baron Darko Saric was reassigned - meaning that the trial will have to start again - a Serbian journalist who has been following the case voiced suspicions of possible obstruction.

Police seized more than 12 tons of cocaine from Colombia’s top crime gang on Nov. 8, the biggest haul ever in the nation’s long-running fight against drug trafficking, President Juan Manuel Santos said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced the capture of 12 tonnes of cocaine - a historic record for the country, which according to UN data is the world's largest producer of this drug, the France press reported.

A crime ring that imported large quantities of cocaine into Greece from Colombia has been unraveled, police said on Monday.

Four members of the gang - a 47-year-old Greek and three Albanians aged, 29, 30 and 49 - were arrested in Athens and the central Greek town of Larissa. Another 40-year-old accomplice, also from Albania, is being sought.