30 Pounds of Heroin Found in Rattan Cargo

Authorities seized more than 30 pounds of high-grade Southeast Asian heroin, valued at $2.8 million, that was smuggled into the Long Beach Harbor, the U.S. Customs Service said Tuesday.

The heroin was hidden in a shipment of rattan--the type used to make furniture, said Quintin Villanueva, the Custom Service’s Pacific regional commissioner. The 30.8 pounds of heroin were “concealed in plastic tubes inserted in the hollowed-out cores of 21 poles of rattan, in 10- and 20-foot lengths,” Villanueva said. “The hollowed-out stalks containing the heroin were coded with notches to indicate their content.”

Villanueva said the shipment arrived in Long Beach on April 4 from Singapore aboard the Danish-registered container ship Louis Maersk. Customs officials found the heroin three days later and turned it over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.