Cocaine wrapped in Louis Vuitton logos seized at Halifax port

More than 459 kilograms of cocaine have been seized at the Port of Halifax, officials with the Canada Border Services Agency said today.

The CBSA said the suspected cocaine was found in a commercial cargo shipment at the port last Wednesday.

It's the third largest seizure of its kind in Atlantic Canada.

"This massive seizure means that we have prevented hundreds of thousands of individual doses of this dangerous and illegal drug from reaching our communities and being sold on our streets," said Dominic Mallette, CBSA chief of operations.

Officers made the discovery after searching a container ship from Argentina that passed through Panama. According to shipping documents, it contained 1,216 cases of alcohol — but that's not what agents found when they X-rayed the container.

They found eight large duffel bags, each containing 50 bricks of cocaine, wrapped with plastic carrying a Louis Vuitton logo. Officers discovered a total of 400 bricks of cocaine weighing about one kilogram each, for a total of 459.3 kilograms of cocaine.

They called the RCMP.

2nd significant seizure at port

Sgt. Keith MacKinnon, with the RCMP's serious and organized crime unit, said the shipment amounts to about 18 million hits of nearly pure cocaine, which would be diluted four times before being sold on the street.

He said it's not uncommon for those selling drugs to brand their product, referring to the Louis Vuitton logo found on the packaging. 

"Sometimes organized crime groups will mark their specific loads, per se, with packaging that’s very recognizable to that organization. We've seen that very frequently in the past," said MacKinnon.

This marks the second significant seizure of cocaine at the port this year. In May, CBSA officers intercepted 46 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a commercial cargo shipment

No arrests have been made.

Police say they don't suspect the ship or the shipping line.