The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced that it has seized over a ton of cocaine and has disrupted the drug supply route from Latin America to the EU via Russia. The traffickers were apprehended near the Latvian border, the agency said.
Last month, FSB agents spotted a suspicious truck in Leningrad Region and placed it under surveillance. They later discovered that the vehicle had been used to stash drugs.
“In October 2024, security authorities on the Russian-Latvian section of the state border identified a truck en route to our country, in which an empty cache was found,” the FSB said in a statement.
The agency said it had arrested two smugglers, both citizens of a Balkan country. A video shared by the FSB showed agents storming a hangar where two men, apparently unaware of the raid, can be seen standing in the back of a cargo truck. The FSB said the suspects were caught red-handed while loading 984 packages of cocaine, each weighing one kilogram, into a cache.
In the clip, security forces are seen detaining the men and subsequently recovering multiple bags containing packages of cocaine wrapped in plastic. The drug was set to be trafficked to an EU country, according to the FSB.
Several hours before the arrest, the smugglers attempted to sell 20kg of cocaine in Russia, for which the traffickers hid the drug in a forest in Leningrad Region and reported the coordinates of the cache to Russian drug dealers. Agents reportedly detained an Estonian citizen and two Russians while recovering the drugs.
The total haul amounted to more than a ton of cocaine valued at over 3.5 billion rubles ($35 million), the FSB said. Five suspects have been arrested and placed into custody. They will face charges of international drug trafficking, according to the agency.