A “record” amount of cocaine worth €400m (£353m) has been recovered off the coast of Sicily.

Seventy waterproof parcels, weighing a total of two tonnes, were found floating in the sea near the port of Catania.

The packages, tagged with an illuminating signal device, were spotted from the sky by a surveillance plane.

Plastic wrapping prevented the drugs from getting wet and the parcels were held together with fishing nets.

Police deployed dinghies to recover the drugs and later found that the packages contained 1,600 packets of cocaine.

It is one of the largest hauls ever confiscated in Italy, with police calling it a “record” seizure.

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A police statement said that the “peculiar packaging methods and the presence of a luminous device to allow tracking” suggested a cargo ship dumped the drugs at sea so it could be collected at a later time.

Police ships tracked the port of Catania for any boats that may have been involved in the operation.

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