Dumped illegally Bern police find bags of ketamine on the highway
The sacks found at the Grauholz-Süd service area in March contain large quantities of ketamine with cellulose. It could be the largest discovery of the illegal drug in Switzerland to date.
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- In March, the Bernese cantonal police found sacks of a white substance at the Grauholz-Süd highway service station.
- As is now known, it is the illegal drug ketamine with the extender cellulose.
- It is probably one of the largest ketamine finds in Switzerland. The Bern cantonal police are talking about a quantity in the three-digit kilo range.
In March, the Bern cantonal police found sacks containing an initially unknown whitish powder at the Grauholz-Süd highway service station. An investigation revealed that it was ketamine and cellulose in the three-digit kilogram range.
The Bern cantonal police did not provide any information on the exact quantity when asked on Tuesday. Ketamine is a synthetic substance that is used as an anesthetic in veterinary and human medicine. Cellulose can be used as an extender. Ketamine and cellulose are used both in the pharmaceutical industry and for drug use.
Ketamine is currently also being discussed for the treatment of depression. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that he has used ketamine to treat depression.
Police are looking for clues
Whether the bags were left at the highway service station for drug couriers was initially unclear. This is the subject of the ongoing investigation, the cantonal police media office said on Tuesday.
The Bern cantonal police were called to the service station shortly before eight o'clock in the morning on March 21, as reported on Tuesday. The emergency services found the sacks near the highway underpass. How the sacks got there and who may have dumped them there was initially unknown. The police were looking for witnesses and information.
Rarely a big find
By Swiss standards, the ketamine find in Bern is probably very large. Last fall, a drug courier was caught with 20 kilograms of ketamine at Zurich Airport. In Geneva, customs officials seized a package containing seven kilograms in 2023.
Even in a European context, the Bernese find is likely to be of a rare size. German customs seized over 26 kilograms at the border with Schaffhausen last autumn. The value of the confiscated drugs was estimated at around 750,000 francs.
Dutch investigators had seized a good 2,000 kilograms of the drug worth more than 50 million euros at the beginning of 2024, as the magazine "Der Spiegel" reported at the time.
