Almost 2 tonnes of cocaine with a market value of more than 400 million euros ($440 million) were found floating at sea off eastern Sicily, Italy’s tax and customs police said on Monday.

The Guardia di Finanza called it a “record” seizure.

The drugs were stored in about 70 waterproof packages, carefully sealed, held together by fishermen’s nets and equippedwith a luminous signalling device, the police said in a statement.

The “peculiar packaging methods and the presence of a luminous device to allow tracking” suggest the haul was dumped
at sea by a cargo ship in order for it to be recovered later, the statement added.