Police seize 207 kg of raw cannabis declared as clothing at Athens airport

The seizure

Police from the Drug Crime Subdirectorate, working with the customs anti-smuggling unit at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos airport, seized 207 kilograms and 466 grams of raw cannabis. The substance was described as unprocessed cannabis and was packed in 48 cartons on two pallets. The pallets were held in a temporary customs storage warehouse at the airport. The accompanying documents declared the cargo as clothing. The operation followed the gathering of information, and police announced it on 4 November 2026. Iefimerida gives 19 August 2026 as the date the cargo was located, while other reports place the seizure simply in August 2026. The authorities estimated that the expected profit from distributing the cannabis would approach 1 million euros.

The route

News 24/7 reports that the pallets set off by air from Thailand, with a stop in Qatar before their final destination in Greece. The same outlet says the documents named sender and recipient companies that were fictitious and did not exist in reality. Iefimerida describes the declared sender as a company based in Thailand and the declared recipient as a company with an address in central Athens. Police said the pallets reportedly travelled by air from Thailand, while the stop in Qatar appears only in the News 24/7 account. The routing details therefore rest on the reports of the pallets' paperwork and on the police account of the origin.

Controlled delivery and open questions

Iefimerida reports that officers carried out a controlled delivery. They removed the drug from the pallets, replaced it with empty packaging and then let the shipment go through the usual clearance process toward its declared destination. The aim was to identify the people who would come to collect it. Nobody approached to take the cargo, and the operation ended without result. A team from the Directorate of Forensic Investigations was called in to examine the packaging and gather material that could help identify those involved. The identities of the people behind the shipment remain unknown in the sources.

Why the case surfaced now

News 24/7 says the seizure became public only now, after months of attempts to trace the intended recipients, which had not succeeded by the time of its report. The outlet also says that Thailand, after Spain, is another significant source of large quantities of drugs, especially raw cannabis. Police said the investigation continues in order to fully clarify the case. None of the sources names a suspect or reports an arrest.