Anti-narcotics police in Ecuador have seized a huge shipment of cocaine weighing 370 kilograms, wrapped in packaging bearing the image of Norwegian star Erling Haaland, the Manchester City striker.
The drugs had been tightly concealed inside a fake double bottom fitted beneath a lorry, Ecuadorian authorities said. Officers stopped the vehicle on the Pan-American Highway during a routine security operation. Search teams then found 370 tightly sealed packages, all carrying a sticker of Haaland.
Police arrested the driver on the spot, according to the American newspaper "New York Post". He could offer no explanation for the presence of the Manchester City star's image on the shipment.
Initial investigations point to a familiar tactic. Smuggling gangs regularly stamp images and names of football stars and global celebrities on their packages as identification marks, flagging the producing network or the party due to receive the shipment. It is a method well known in the smuggling world for telling goods apart.
Haaland is not the first footballer whose face has ended up on a drug haul. Similar shipments bearing the image of Argentine star Lionel Messi have been seized in earlier operations across South America and Europe.
