Five tonnes of cocaine with a avenue worth of £737m have been seized from a "suspicious" fishing boat close to Sicily.

According to frame police, it's the greatest cocaine bust ever carried out on Italian territory.

An Italian, two Tunisians, a Frenchman and an Albanian have been arrested.

Footage launched by the police confirmed two officers eradicating a panel onboard the boat, which was getting used to hide a big room full of baggage of the Class A drug.

The policemen struggled to elevate one of many baggage - and once they caught in a knife to seek out out what was inside, white powder was left on the blade.

Overall, dozens of baggage of cocaine have been retrieved.

Officers had been carefully monitoring a ship, which had initially set sail from South America, and swooped within the early hours of Wednesday morning.

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A surveillance plane had noticed packages being thrown from the deck and into the waters of the Strait of Sicily so that they may very well be collected by a ready fishing trawler.

Sicily's regional president, Renato Schifani, stated the seizure was an enormous blow to smugglers.

"Drugs are a scourge of our society fuelled by unscrupulous men who sow death by crushing hopes and destroying many families," he added.

Back in April, Italian police had found two tonnes of cocaine floating at sea to the east of Sicily, which they consider had been left by a cargo ship for assortment.