Aldi workers find $21m cocaine haul in banana boxes

More than $21 million worth of cocaine has turned up in boxes of bananas delivered to Aldi supermarkets in and around Berlin.

Staff working at 14 of the discount supermarkets reported the stashes of narcotics tucked in the produce deliveries from Colombia, which police believe ended up at the stores by accident overnight.

"Apparently there was a logistical mistake somewhere along the line," police spokesman Stefan Redlich told AFP, adding that investigators were now trying to determine their intended destination.

A police spokesman said the 386kg shipment is the biggest single cocaine find in the history of the German capital and investigators are now trying to determine their intended destination.

In a similar case in January 2014, Berlin supermarket workers discovered 140kg of the drug worth around $8.5 million also hidden in crates of bananas.

The seven crates in that case were originally bound for the UK but were accidentally distributed across five Berlin stores after bad weather delayed the cargo ship they were travelling in, The Local reports.

Other reported cases include a 145kg cocaine haul uncovered by Norwegian police in December 2013 and 200kg of the drug by Danish customs the previous summer – both in banana boxes.

ninemsn staff with AAP