A MEMBER of the government who is also a powerful business person was involved in an operation smuggling cocaine in frozen fish says an expose in a major Italian newspaper.

Italian and international judicial authorities have implicated a Panamanian fishing company in the operation says Corriere della Sera Also in the picture is Italian businessman Valter Lavitola said to have acted in complicity with a "powerful business person" who lives and works in Panama and who is the owner of an exporting company which sent packages of white powder - believed to be cocaine - hidden inside tuna and sharks. The load was delivered from Peru through Panama and then to Italy.
"Trafficking began in 2009/2010 and was intense until 2012, with 170 kilos of cocaine sent weekly," according to the article entitled "Lavitola, drugs in frozen fish."
Lavitola had a fishing company in Brazil and used companies in Panama to sell shark fins, although this activity is prohibited.
The sources consulted by the daily provided e-mails and photographs and said that those involved "are powerful, and they felt invincible."
It alleges that the Panamanian involved was a member of government, who allegedly transported large amounts of money using the privileges of diplomatic immunity.