A ‘John Wick’ Clue Led Italian Police to Intercept a Package of Cocaine Coffee Beans

Ryan Lattanzio
·2 min read

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Talk about a wakeup call. Italian police have just discovered a two-kilogram parcel of cocaine packaged inside the shells of coffee beans in Milan and, according to TMZ, it was a clue from the sequel to the hit Keanu Reeves action film “John Wick” that tipped them off.

According to police, the coked-out beans were traveling under the moniker “Santino D’Antonio,” which is the name of a mafia boss villain from “John Wick: Chapter 2”  (played by Riccardo Scamarcio). This was an immediate red flag to police in Italy, where “John Wick: Chapter 2” released in March 2017 and grossed about $2 million U.S. dollars. The package, which was en route from Medellín in Colombia, contained 150 grams of cocaine hidden in about 500 beans. The beans were reportedly headed to a tobacco shop in Florence, Italy, and police quickly arrested the tobacconist when he came to retrieve the package.

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Italian police named their operation “Caffè Scorretto,” which translates in English to “Improper Coffee.” This cheeky name is a play on the country’s popular caffè corretto, which consists of a shot of espresso with a nip of liquor.

The legacy and popularity of the Reeves-starring action franchise is evidenced not just in this bizarre case, but also in the 2014 original’s spawning of two sequels, including “Chapter 3: Parabellum” in 2019, with a fourth film also in the mix. Though with productions shut down the world round, and Reeves currently committed to finishing the Wachowskis’ “The Matrix 4,” we may not see a fourth “John Wick” film until at least 2022.

The movie franchise also helped revive the profile of Keanu Reeves, who will soon be returning to another iconic franchise with “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” which is currently dated for August 28. Ahead of the release, Reeves and his cast and crew will tease the movie at an upcoming virtual ComicCon panel next weekend. Reeves also lent his voice to the animated “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On The Run,” a movie that’s passing on theatrical and instead will head for CBS All Access in early 2021.

Head over to Euronews for photos of the cocaine coffee beans, and below, you can see how police made the discovery.

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