This article originally appeared on Huffington Post by Ed Mazza on September 1st, 2016.
It’s the real thing.
Workers at a Coca-Cola plant in France found about 815 pounds of cocaine in a shipping container last week.
The shipment, from Costa Rica, was supposed to contain orange juice extract. Instead, it had about $55 million in cocaine.
Local prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux told the BBC the discovery was “a very bad surprise.”
The plant, located in Signes, creates concentrates to use in different Coke products, The Independent reported.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola France said the workers who found the drug immediately reported it and are not considered suspects, according to The Telegraph.
Coke at a Coke plant might seem like the company going back to its roots ― although Coca-Cola insists that cocaine was never “an added ingredient” in the soft drink.
Early versions are believed to have contained the drug because of the use of coca-leaf extract, although the exact levels are not known and much of it was removed from the drink by the late 19th century, according to Snopes.
The myth-busting website reports that Coke contained only trace levels of cocaine by 1902, and was completely cocaine-free in 1929.
John