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Timisoara - Romanian police seized a load of furniture filled with 70kg of "black cocaine", a chemically-altered form of the drug intended to block detection, officials said on Wednesday.
The shipment of drugs, with an estimated street value of $4.3m, had originally come from Ecuador and was headed to Spain when it was intercepted overnight in Timisoara in western Romania.
"It's black cocaine, which looks a lot like pine tar and was injected into pieces of furniture," Chief Police Commissioner Claudiu Cucu told a press conference.
"This seizure is the first of its kind for us because of the way it was hidden," he added.
Cocaine becomes "black cocaine" when mixed with chemicals that change its colour and are intended to mask its odour from police dogs during transport.
Once the drug reaches its destination it is chemically treated again, turning it back into white powder.
After arriving in Europe from Ecuador, the drugs passed through Hamburg, Germany and the Romanian port town of Constanta before reaching the Spanish capital Madrid.
Three men - a Colombian, a Venezuelan and a Romanian - were arrested in connection with the drug shipment.
