Who would bring a suitcase full of olive oil to Portugal, one of the world's biggest producers of the stuff?

Police at Lisbon airport were already suspicious of one passenger before they discovered 24 bottles of extra virgin olive oil marked as Argentinian-made in his luggage.

"We had information that the man could be a trafficker, so he was stopped for checks, but the fact that he was coming to Portugal with a bunch of olive oil definitely reinforced our suspicions, which proved to be right," a police official said.

The oil was found to be mixed with cocaine.

"We've had seizures of drugs hidden in bananas, pineapples, but this is unusual because it begs the question why," the official told Reuters.

The amount of the drug suspended in the oil would be enough for 33,000 individual doses, he said. The man was arrested.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.