Russia seizes EU-bound $72 million cocaine shipment
The total wight of the contraband was over 670kg, the FSB has said
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said that its operatives have captured a 673kg batch of Latin American cocaine, which was intended to be smuggled into the EU.
The wholesale price of the shipment on the Russian ‘black market’ stands at around 2.5 billion rubles ($2.7 million), the FSB said in a statement on Wednesday. However, the estimated street value could be up to $72 million, it estimated.
“Another attempt by an international criminal group to use the territory of Russia for transit and distribution of drugs has been thwarted,” the statement read.
According to the FSB, two men from Russia’s “border regions” were arrested in Moscow while in possession of the drug. They had allegedly come to the capital to collect the drugs and deliver them to a location from where they would have been smuggled into the EU.
The perpetrators used a rented car, fake IDs, and driving licenses in an attempt to carry out their “multi-stage narco-action,” the statement read.
The video published by the FSB showed an SUV packed with bags and boxes of the alleged cocaine. Some even fell out on the asphalt as the operatives opened the vehicle’s back door.
The suspects claimed they had no idea what was in the packages. “We were offered a chance to make some money and move some boxes,” one of them said in the footage.
The FBS reminded the suspects that drug trafficking, especially on a large scale, is a serious crime in Russia, which may result in a prison term of up to 20 years or even a life sentence.
READ MORE: African nation seizes three tons of cocaine
In May, the agency reported the seizure of 492kgs of cocaine in Russia’s Smolensk Region, which borders Belarus. The drugs had been transported towards Poland in two trucks registered in Türkiye, it said.