ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghanaian customs officials have seized a large quantity of cannabis at an airport thought to be bound for Britain hidden in a cargo of food, Ghana's Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) said on Friday.
A total of 665 kg of cannabis with an estimated street value of 3.9 million pounds was discovered late on Thursday in a consignment of 53 freight boxes meant to contain food destined for Europe, NACOB spokesman Francis Amoah said.
"Only three boxes contained real food items -- some cocoyams, plantain and some local staples, the rest were all full of parcels of cannabis," Amoah said.
"There were 230 parcels in all, including slabs of compressed cannabis, but most of it were containers of cannabis paste," he said.
NACOB suspected the drugs were intended for sale in Britain but could not confirm their final destination, he said.
Ghana and other West African countries have become increasingly important points on the route for smuggling cocaine from Latin America to Europe.
In July, two British teenage girls left a Ghanaian jail after a year in detention for attempting to smuggle cocaine to Britain.
The cannabis seized on Thursday was found after it was offloaded from a truck which then sped away from the cargo section of Kotoka International Airport in Ghana's capital Accra. No arrests have yet been made, Amoah said.
(Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
