Chocolate mixer hides drugs haul

Police in Colombia say they have uncovered a massive drugs haul hidden inside an industrial chocolate mixer.

At least 160kg of cocaine was found after police intercepted the mixer at Bogota airport.

The steel machine had been specially designed to smuggle drugs and weighed two and a half tonnes.

It had been loaded on a flight to the Spanish capital, Madrid, but officials became suspicious and called in a team of welders to cut it open.

Bags of cocaine

"Inside the machine we found and confiscated 160kg of cocaine with a street value of two million euros," metropolitan police chief Gen Hector Garcia Guzman told Associated Press.

The haul, made up of 148 plastic bags of the drug, was uncovered in the course of routine operations at the city's El Dorado airport.

Gen Guzman said the mixing machine had originated in the northern Valle province.

Police officials say they suspect the machine was despatched by the powerful Valle del Cauca drugs cartel.

Two men in Valle province have been detained for questioning in connection with the incident, police said.