Britons held over drug smuggling

Cocaine was found inside wine bottles

Two Britons are being held in Argentina in connection with an alleged plot to smuggle £6m worth of cocaine inside wine bottles, said the Foreign Office.

The pair, from England, were arrested on suspicion of being part of a gang masterminding the plot.

A police raid on a warehouse in the Buenos Aires suburb of Moron found five people, 200 kilos of cocaine and around 10,000 wine bottles.

Two Yugoslavs and one Argentinean were also arrested in the operation.

Solid liquid

A further five Argentineans working in the warehouse were also arrested.

It is believed between 200 and 250 grams of cocaine would have been dissolved into each bottle of wine, bought from a small winery with no connection to the plot, before being exported to Britain and the Continent.

Customs officials became suspicious when they noticed some bottles of wine seemed to be full of a solid liquid and they alerted police who in turn raided the warehouse.

Chief of the Argentine Police Drugs Division, Roberto Raglewski, who headed the operation codenamed White Vineyard, said Britain and Spain were the main targets for the traffickers.

"We believe an attempt was made to dilute more of the drug in each bottle, around 500 grams, and that was too much", he said.

The five people arrested are also suspected of money laundering and police have begun investigating their assets.

A Foreign Office spokesman could not identify the English nationals but said: "We're aware of the British nationals in custody and we are attempting to make further inquiries and to contact the authorities in Argentina."