German customs find 25 kilograms of ketamine in golden garden gnomes

Customs officials at Germany's Cologne/Bonn Airport have discovered around 25 kilograms of the drug ketamine hidden in five gold-coloured garden gnomes.

The drugs were worth around €1 million ($1.16 million), the German customs agency said.

The garden gnomes were checked at the airport in western Germany just under a month ago on their way from southern Germany to Canada and Australia.

"The first anomalies were already visible on the X-ray images," said a customs spokesman.

"Significant changes to the feet" then led colleagues to suspect that the gnomes were being used to smuggle drugs.

Ketamine is half the price of cocaine on the black market and is increasingly being consumed as a party drug.

Unlike other drugs, ketamine is often smuggled from Europe to overseas.

Last year, Cologne customs alone discovered 1.3 tons of ketamine worth €54 million.

Just a week ago, Cologne customs found 33 kilos of ketamine in the luggage of a passenger in a Dutch taxi on the A3 motorway.

The 30 vacuum bags were wrapped in gift paper as camouflage.