£15m heroin haul found in Turkish tiles

Customs officers have seized heroin worth £15m in a consignment of Turkish ceramic tiles just days after a £5m stash of the drug was discovered disguised as almonds.

Customs officers have seized heroin worth £15m in a consignment of Turkish ceramic tiles just days after a £5m stash of the drug was discovered disguised as almonds.

Five men and two women were being questioned yesterday over the seizure after the drugs were tracked from Istanbul to Felixstowe in Suffolk and then to Leeds and Barnsley. About 170kg of the class A drug was found, a Customs spokesman said.

Chris Harrison, the officer in charge of the operation in Leeds, said: "We are determined to continue rooting out criminal organisations responsible for the international trafficking of huge quantities of class A drugs."

On Friday last week three Pakistani nationals were arrested in east London after wraps of heroin shaped to look like almonds and placed in packets were discovered at Southampton docks.