Some run away, and some pay to get into the store

Overseas shipping agents and border police officers at international ports have been identified as key figures through whom drug cartels obtained the personal details of the crews of large container ships, who were then recruited to smuggle cocaine.

An interlocutor of Vijesti at a foreign security service told in detail about the events at the famous Brazilian club in Santos, which was in fact a recruitment centre for that illegal but lucrative business, but also about its subsequent closure due to police pressure.

Vijesti’s research shows that few resisted the call, and that some of the others often ended up underground or behind bars. Some, however, earned business empires in this way, which in many cities of the former Yugoslavia are synonymous with success…

How much money is made from this dangerous job? According to data from a team of international researchers, people paid up to 30,000 euros to an experienced captain from southern Montenegro, just to get him to work…

“As soon as we disembarked at the Santos terminal, a message was sent to the cartel… They didn’t have to follow us. We knew where we would end up – in a nightclub that we, for whom it was our first encounter with Brazil, had only heard that it offered the best time, but also that it had the most expensive and hottest women. Colleagues from the ship, not even the first officer, did not mention what we had realized long ago, that summer night – that the fierce boys from the south are the owners of clubs, restaurants, businesses… and that these are usually bases for making dirty deals and recruiting soldiers,” says one of Vijesti’s interlocutors.

He explains that he and his friend and colleague would become their prey that night: “A rejected offer would mean immediate end of life, an accepted offer would probably mean the same, but a little later, when we do our part.”

“That was exactly the offer made to us at the bar of a nightclub in Santos by a tall, striking man with a shaved head, while drinking whiskey, otherwise the head of an international drug cartel that came from the area of ​​the former Yugoslavia. In these ‘bases’ people, planned or unplanned, fall into the hands of drug cartels and become their soldiers… Our lives, which at that time were not worth five dollars, were saved by ingenuity, even though all this happened in a city where everything happens and where there are no rules”…

Thus, one of them told Vijesti about the encounter with the mafia that needed the services of the container ship’s sailors. He added that after one of the operations, in which a large quantity of cocaine was arrested and seized, he had discovered that a large number of his colleagues on the ship were involved in that illegal trade.

His story was confirmed by Vijesti’s interlocutor from the Foreign Security Service, who ‘processed’ the stranded sailors during numerous arrests.

In response to questions about a sort of recruitment center — a nightclub in Santos named after the Brazilian soccer club — he said that during the wide-ranging investigation, dozens of Balkan sailors were interviewed. A number of them turned down the offer, even though it meant “failing” the mafia boss and then moved on to smaller ships and routes that were of no interest to the mafia.

But they are not many, and they are the ones who are causing problems for the Balkan sailors. They are finding it increasingly difficult to do business…

“Many years later, the first joint operations in the south that we did, they just went to that club… We got them to stop it. During the same operations, we also discovered how they always knew with absolute precision who to recruit – civil servants and shipping agents were investigated, because they are large companies with agencies in almost all countries, and deal with all the formalities with the port and state authorities. , of paperwork, services, needs. We knew that they, or government officials, gave the cartels information, including passport photos of those who could be good for their jobs. It turned out that they did both. For a few hundred dollars. Each of them, heard in the investigations, said that they had to do that, that they were threatened. That’s how we got the information about the case we are talking about today, but also the identification of those who recruited Balkan sailors from South America, among whom for many years a man from Kotor and a Croat of Slovenian nationality were in charge,” the interlocutor said. News.

In this context, he named the two main links in the Balkan Cartel’s seafarer networks.

What are you guys drinking?

Vijesti’s investigation into the recruitment of sailors for the international cocaine trade revealed that one of the sailors from Bar was attacked by the cartel as soon as he stepped off the ship in South America. However, he lost his life in the fire that the cartel had prepared for him, after he had made up numerous ‘excuses’ for them: ‘He was set on fire in Spain, in a rental car’…

“A part of the young people who come from the countries of the former Yugoslavia to earn a living, without the intention of getting involved in crime, end up in the clutches of the mafia. Most of them fall, for example, when in a Brazilian nightclub, surrounded by women and people from all over the world, they hear in our fluent language: ‘Boys who drink’… Happy to have met one of our people in Brazil, they hang around and then go out drinking, the most expensive women, the whole time the ship is in port, which is about 24 to 36 hours, so ‘friendship’ and get to business very quickly. That’s how a number of them fell and got into cocaine smuggling, without any prior contact with criminals from the EX YU area. Then they made contact and often went into business with local cells of international drug cartels, such as Pljevlja, Skaljar, Kavač… Now the danger is three times greater than it was just less than two decades ago, including those who are just starting out “But also their families must be much more careful: the challenges are greater and it is easier to obtain the data of those who board the ships. Therefore, sometimes recruitment begins even before they book a plane ticket in Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia and board the ship,” said Vijesti’s interlocutor from the Foreign Security Service.

He explains that the scale of the problem became apparent more than 15 years ago, when complex cocaine smuggling networks were uncovered during numerous international operations involving Balkan seamen.

“Then we confirmed operational information, exchanged with international partners – that Balkan sailors became an important part of international criminal gangs smuggling huge amounts of cocaine from South America to Europe. This also coincided with the data that the real lucrative stories began after the cartels found out that in 2007 a large shipping company bought and took over four new ships at a shipyard in Romania (Constanza). Those four ships are specific because in the holds (cargo holds), the spaces below the deck were equipped with refrigerated container connections. In translation, they could drive refrigerated containers both on the deck and in the holds, which means a larger number of refrigerated containers. The connections are usually located on the deck. With the addition of connections in the measurements, with a capacity of 600-800 refrigerated containers per ship, they were sent to South America immediately after the takeover, because Brazil and Argentina are major exporters of frozen products and there was a chronic need for such ships and their deployment on such routes. Until then, smaller ships with a smaller capacity went from South America to Europe. The renewal of the fleet was a clear sign for all those who smuggled narcotics, for them it was the easiest way, with the creation of adequate logistics. At that time, there were always ships on those routes, it was a safe passage for them, and then the smuggling of hundreds of kilos of cocaine began in earnest… Part of their task was to recruit sailors, who would supply them with cocaine and take it to the European ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Valencia, Genoa, Gioia Tauro, Bar, Kopar… It also suited them that there was an intermediate station in the Canary Islands, ie the port of Las Palmas, in the container ships’ regular schedule… Then began the massive incorporation of sailors from the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and until then the members of the America clan were at the forefront,” said the Vijesti interlocutor.

2.63 tons of cocaine were found on the plane

Police in Guinea-Bissau have seized 2.63 tons of cocaine found on a plane at the country’s airport after international partners passed on information that a plane from Venezuela was arriving in the country loaded with cocaine.

After landing at Osvaldo Vieira airport, 78 bales of cocaine were found and seized in the passenger cabin.

In addition to the seized 2,633 kg of cocaine, Guinean authorities managed to arrest five crew members: two Mexicans and one each from Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil.

According to Vijesta, this large-scale international operation was supported by the Center for the Analysis of Maritime Operations in the Field of Narcotics Trafficking (MAOC-N) and was made possible by extensive cooperation and information sharing between several partners, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Portuguese Judicial Police (PJ) and the Colombian Air Force.

The investigation was supported by INTERPOL and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which played a key role in identifying and combating the criminal networks responsible for shipping planes full of cocaine from South America to West Africa.

Vijesti’s interlocutor from the Foreign Security Service said that large seizures on the high seas are forcing international cocaine smugglers to change both the method and route of smuggling, and that West Africa is a known transit point in the global drug trade.

MAOC-N said it will continue to work with partner countries to combat drug trafficking by sea and air, most of which is destined for Europe.

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