Macedonia nets 400 kg cocaine in biggest drug bust

SKOPJE, Jan 8 (Reuters) Macedonian police have seized more than 400 kg of cocaine worth 40 million euros (52.42 million dollars), the country's largest drug haul, officials said today.

The drugs were found yesterday, hidden in paint cans in a truck trying to cross into Macedonia at the Blace border crossing with Kosovo, Serbia's breakaway southern province which has been run by the United Nations since a 1998-99 war.

''This is the biggest shipment we have ever seized,'' said police spokesman Ivo Koteski. ''The cargo is from Venezuela and the destination was most probably Greece. The market value of the drugs is about 40 million euros.'' Koteski said the high-quality cocaine had been loaded at the Montenegrin port city of Bar. The driver, a Macedonian citizen, was arrested.

The Balkans, impoverished by war in the 1990s but pushing for European Union membership over the next decade, have long served as a key smuggling route into Western Europe for smuggled and counterfeit goods, drugs and human trafficking.

REUTERS AB VV1615