Italian police have seized around two tonnes (2,000kg) of cocaine that was found floating off the coast of Sicily, in one of the country’s largest ever finds of illegal drugs.

Some 70 waterproof packages were found held together by fishing nets and equipped with a tracking device.

Police put the haul’s street value at more than €400m.

Officers believe the drugs were dumped at sea by a cargo ship in order to be recovered later.

The packages, made up of around 1,600 bricks of drugs, were spotted by a navy surveillance plane, police said.