A HAUL of cocaine worth more than £2million that was stashed in a cargo of nuts has been seized at the Port of Tilbury.

Border Force officers discovered the drugs, which had been shipped to the port from Panama, on Sunday.

They were hidden within a container that was carrying a legitimate cargo of nuts.

The smugglers had stashed 46kgs of cocaine with a street value of £2.4million inside two black holdalls.

Investigations are now continuing into the huge find.

Mark Kennedy, border force assistant director at Tilbury, said: “Cocaine is a destructive drug which ruins the lives of users and damages the wider community.

“This was a large find and will have significantly disrupted the activity of the criminal parties involved.

“Seizures like this demonstrate how Border Force officers are at the forefront of the fight to keep illegal drugs and other banned substances off the streets.”

Border Force officers use hi-tech search equipment to combat immigration crime and detect banned and restricted goods that smugglers attempt to bring into the country.

They use a variety of search techniques including sniffer dogs, carbon dioxide detectors, heartbeat monitors and scanners, as well as visual searches, to find well-hidden stowaways, illegal drugs, firearms and cigarettes which would otherwise end up causing harm to local people, businesses and communities.

Anyone with information about suspected drug smuggling can contact the Border Force hotline on 0800 59 5000.