Heroin with an estimated street value of £2.5million was seized from a lorry at Harwich Port on Monday as part of a week-long police operation focusing on Essex air and sea ports.
Essex Police has been working with Border Force, the National Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs to do extra patrols at the sites, including Harwich and Stansted Airport, to disrupt organise crime and terrorists.
As well as the 50 kilos of heroin found at Harwich, Border Force officers discovered a ton of hand-rolling tobacco, 200,000 cigarettes and 92kg of loose tobacco as well as class B drugs during a search of a cargo plane at Stansted on Thursday.
Other operations saw vehicle checks around ports with more than 30,000 checks and 140 stops made, sniffer dog searches and further training for port staff.
Detective Chief Inspector Barry Wix, senior ports officer at Essex Police, said: “The public and travel industry have an active part to play in keeping the UK safe.
“This week of activity has shown partner agencies are working closely to protect communities.
“This work goes on 52 weeks of the year, but as we approach the summer – what is traditionally the busiest period for our ports – this is a timely reminder of the work police and partner agencies carry out to disrupt, deter and detect both terrorist activity and organised crime.
“We ask the public to remain vigilant by reporting suspicious activity to the anti-terrorist hotline on 0800 789321 or by calling police on 101, or 999 in an emergency.”
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