Greek police said they have broken up an international drug-trafficking ring that hid cocaine inside cowhides shipped from Bolivia, uncovering one of the country’s most sophisticated narcotics laboratories to date. Officers from the Attica Organized Crime Directorate, acting on intelligence shared by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, raided an abandoned greenhouse in Pikermi, an eastern suburb of Athens, on 3-4 July. Investigators found at least 300 packages of salt laced with cocaine and estimate the haul at more than 800 kilograms of the drug. Chemicals, industrial mixers and other equipment used to extract and re-crystallise the cocaine were confiscated. The method, which rendered the narcotic virtually undetectable during transit, mirrors techniques recently seen in other Latin America–to-Europe smuggling routes, police said. Eleven people have been arrested so far—five Greeks, three Albanians, a Bolivian, a Georgian and a Spaniard—on charges that include drug trafficking and participation in a criminal organisation. Authorities are examining additional pallets of leather and have not ruled out further arrests as they trace the financing links of the network, which they believe intended to distribute the cocaine in Greece and elsewhere in Europe.