UKRAINIANS ACCUSED OF SMUGGLING COCAINE

Another scandal involving Ukrainian sailors surfaced near the American port city of San Diego, when the US Coast Guards confiscated a thirteen ton consignment of cocaine, an all-time record. The contraband, worth nearly a billion dollars, was found in a fishing trawler towed to San Diego on Sunday. The ship operating in areas never known as fishing grounds before caught the eye of the Coast Guards. The worst suspicions of American officials were confirmed when Belize-registered Star of Maru was searched, with no fishing gear found onboard. It took the US authorities five days to detect a secret hiding place under the hold where the contraband narcotics were kept, the Associated Press reports.

Currently, ten members of the crew, two Russians and eight Ukrainians, are in police custody in San Diego on charges of smuggling cocaine. The crew could get life sentences, Interfax reports. As San Diego Anti-Narcotics Bureau experts say, The Star of Maru impounded 2.5 km. south of San Diego was allegedly on her way to Central America. From there cocaine was likely to be smuggled to the United States by land.

Three months ago the Coast Guards seized nearly eight tons of cocaine hidden beneath fish and ice in a secret compartment of a rusty fishing boat sailing off the Mexican coast. The crew also consisted of ten sailors, nine Central Americans and one Ukrainian. So far, a record catch of contraband white poison smuggled by sea took place in 1995, involving the Natalie I with 12 tons of cocaine onboard, AP reports.

“If this information is confirmed, the case is going to be a very difficult one. But we will spare no effort to protect our citizens,” Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs consular service deputy director Oleksandr Mishchenko assured journalists on May 15. According to him, the American authorities have already assigned a lawyer to represent the arrested sailors. The names of the detained Ukrainians are known, the diplomat declared. The Foreign Ministry has released the information to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the latter is to notify the relatives of the jailed sailors.