At Cologne-Bonn Airport, German customs officers found about 25 kilograms of ketamine hidden inside gold-painted garden gnome figurines. The estimated black market value of the seized drug is about one million euros.
The discovery was made during an X-ray inspection of four postal items that were heading from southern Germany to Canada and Australia. The customs officers were particularly suspicious of the figures’ legs – their shape had been changed and looked unnatural.
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“Suspicion was aroused, in particular, by the legs of the garden gnomes, the shape of which had been clearly changed”, said Jens Aland, a spokesman for the Cologne customs office.
Ketamine is considered a narcotic substance that is often used at parties. On the illegal market, it is usually sold for about half the price of cocaine. Unlike many other drugs, ketamine is often smuggled from Europe to other regions of the world.
Similar cases have happened before. Thus, in 2024, Dutch law enforcement officers reported the seizure of almost two kilograms of MDMA (ecstasy), which were also disguised in a garden gnome sculpture.
Recently, another drug-related news story concerned Greece: former Finance Minister and leader of the radical left Movement for Democracy in Europe party Yanis Varoufakis was formally charged after he publicly admitted that he had used ecstasy several decades ago.
