Surprise find for Montreal port inspectors

Inspectors at the Port of Montreal searching an overseas shipping container for a pesky type of beetle made a surprise find – about 1.7 tonnes of hash, reported Windsor Star.

Smugglers had divided the drugs into 864 packets and concealed those packets in the false bottoms of 18 of a 19-crate shipment of statues and masks shipped from South Africa.

But the one thing they apparently hadn't taken into account was the reputation of the Asian longhorn beetle.

"The same container was received in Montreal last July," said Canadian Border Service Agency spokeswoman Dominique McNeely.
"There were no narcotics inside, but the container was flagged because of the wood used in the crates."

In fact, the problem wasn't so much with the wood but suspicions that a dangerous type of stowaway had hitched a ride in it.

The Asian longhorn beetle has been making it onto CBSA statements as prominently as hashish seizures: the insect's appetite for such hardwood trees as maple, poplar, willow, elm and birch is so voracious that the border agency describes the species as "an invasive quarantine pest".

The container yielded 1.7 tonnes of hashish possessing an estimated street value of US$36 million.

(Source: Cargo News Asia)