Narco Blog: Colombia Arrests 5 with Half-Ton of Cocaine

Colombian authorities arrested five people who were hauling 493 kilos (1,085 pounds) of cocaine to the country’s Caribbean coast.

Personnel from the navy and Attorney General’s Office detected the drugs at a highway checkpoint in the northern province of Cesar, the headquarters of Colombia’s Caribbean fleet said in a statement.

The cocaine was packed into 16 sacks concealed in a cargo of food.

With an estimated value of nearly $15 million, the consignment was bound for a illicit drug depot in Cordoba province, where it would have been loaded onto high-speed boats, the navy said.