Algeria has become an emerging hub for cocaine coming to the UK, warned British paper “The Independent”.

The paper recalled the discovery of almost half a tonne of cocaine floating in waters off the Algerian port city of Oran late last month.

“It was the second massive cocaine shipment discovered in Algeria. In May 2018, officials seized more than 700kg of the drug on a cargo ship carrying frozen meat from Brazil,” it said. The seizure led to a national scandal and mass arrests across Algeria, the paper noted.