A £40 million cocaine smuggling operation smashed in Argentina may have been intended to flood the Russian market with the deadly drug for this year’s World Cup, it is alleged. The huge trafficking scam was busted after the Russian ambassador to Buenos Aires reported his suspicions about 16 pieces of luggage which turned out to be crammed full of 850 lbs of cocaine.
It was due to be smuggled to Russia in diplomatic baggage.
Envoy Víktor Koronelli, and three members of Russia’s FSB – Federal Security Service – alerted Patricia Bullrich, Argentina’s minister of security, to the suspicious cargo hidden in the embassy compound’s Russian school.
The cocaine with a £40 million black market was immediately replaced with flour by Argentine law enforcement , and the bags fitted with tracking devices.
Then a complicated 16-month investigation by the two countries got underway which had direct involvement from Vladimir Putin’s most senior intelligence official, Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Kremlin’s security council and a former FSB boss.
This culminated in the cargo – the flour rather than the cocaine – being illegally shipped to Moscow late last year as diplomatic baggage.
Yesterday it was claimed the cocaine may have been linked to boosting black market supplies coinciding with this summer’s FIFA World Cup which Russia is hosting.
