‘The Cocaine Route’ to Durrës: 38 Days at Sea from Brazil via Morocco and Greece

After four years, cocaine was seized again at the Port of Durrës.

On September 14, 2026, a cargo of chicken meat inside several refrigerated containers, sent from Brazil and destined for Albania, became the focus of an international drug-trafficking investigation. Once it arrived at the Port of Durrës, 41 kilograms of cocaine were discovered.

The cargo passed through several ports and was transferred from one ship to another before arriving in Durrës. It was a sea route that lasted about 38 days and involved four countries: Brazil, Morocco, Greece and finally Albania.

A2 CNN has learned that the container was loaded on August 5 at the port of Itajaí, Brazil, and headed to its first destination, the Tanger Med port in Morocco, where it arrived on August 24 after 19 days at sea.

In Tanger Med, it stayed for about eight days. On September 1 it was loaded onto another ship, which departed on September 2 toward Greece and five days later stopped at the port of Piraeus. A day later it was transferred to another ship and on September 9 headed for Albania.

The ship arrived at the Port of Durrës on the afternoon of September 12, from where unloading began on the morning of September 13, and according to investigation data, it left the terminal in the evening. But the journey did not end there: it was brought back for scanning a day later, when signals arrived from foreign partners. It was precisely this procedure that uncovered the cargo hidden in rainbow-colored packages.

So far, police have made no arrests, even though investigations continue.

The last cocaine seizures at the Port of Durrës date back to July 18 and November 3, 2022, of 33.5 and 7.3 kg of cocaine.