Spanish police said Friday they had detained a man who received a parcel in the mail from Venezuela containing a dinner set that was made with 20 kilos (44 pounds) of cocaine.
The 35-year-old was arrested as he received the package containing the 42-piece dinner set made up of cups, plates and bowls at his home in Barcelona, police said in a statement.
The package was sent to Barcelona from Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, via London in the middle of February.
Police suspect the man had been recruited by a Venezuelan drug trafficking gang to receive the package which he was supposed to hand over to members of the group who would then extract the cocaine from the dinner set.
Barcelona has been the scene in recent days of several creative attempts to smuggle cocaine into Spain, the main entry point for the drug into Europe.
Earlier this month police detained an Ecuadorian woman at Barcelona airport who tried to smuggle liquid cocaine hidden in spray cans of products to starch clothes or clean glass into Spain.
Police also arrested a 66-year-old Chilean man at the airport at the beginning of the month after discovering that his broken leg was supported by a "cast" made out of cocaine.
