The Lower Austria State Criminal Police Office (LKA) reported yesterday on the “third largest drug discovery in the history of the Second Republic” with Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (VP).
Investigators seized a total of 137 kilograms of cocaine, 134 of which were hidden in wooden boards. Specifically, there were 115 pieces of prepared teak boards. They were discovered on September 14th of the previous year during a routine inspection of a cargo ship container from Bolivia in the port of Hamburg. The police confiscated the boards with the drugs and they were then taken to Austria. LKA specialists dismantled them “by hand for days,” said LKA head Stefan Pfandler in yesterday’s press conference.
International drug ring
The drugs found inside were extracted and examined. According to Pfandler, they had a purity of 85 percent. A delivery note and a destination address stated on the container led the investigators to a drug gang that operated in Bratislava (Slovakia), Kottingbrunn (Baden district) and Vienna-Meidling. A total of nine suspects – eight Serbs and one Austrian – were arrested who are said to have smuggled and sold drugs internationally.
Four of them were observed unloading the container in Slovakia and were later caught at the Austrian border. Pfandler spoke of an “extremely high level of personnel and technical commitment”. The Serbs who are now in the Josefstadt prison would refuse to make any statements. The investigation is continuing, said Daniel Lichtenegger from the BKA.
