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LONDON. — British police yesterday said they arrested eight people after seizing 200kg of cocaine with a street value of some £70 million at a port close to London.

The police intercepted two vehicles near Tilbury docks in the early hours of on Tuesday, finding “numerous blocks of high-purity cocaine” packed into holdalls in the boot of a minicab. The 29-year-old minicab driver and two men in the second vehicle were arrested on suspicion of “conspiracy to import drugs and conspiracy to supply controlled drugs,” the Metropolitan Police said.

Other officers arrested three more men on the same charges after finding them hiding in undergrowth nearby, and detained two suspected drug dealers at residential addresses.

“We’ve seized a massive amount of cocaine which we believe would have made organized criminals in excess of £70m had it reached the street-level sellers that it was intended for,” said detective inspector Andy Whitewood of the Metropolitan Police’s organised crime command. The vast majority of these drugs would have been destined for the streets of London, where drug sales line the pockets of criminals and blight the communities in which they are sold,” Whitewood said. — dpa.