How Drug Cartels Recruit Sailors (3): Planes, Submarines, Mules…

An experienced sailor from southern Montenegro was a key link for boarding drug cartel couriers on the ships of large overseas companies for more than two decades. In several cases under the supervision of international investigators, the sailor allegedly did young Montenegrins a favor by boarding them on ships that departed from ports in South America and sailed to Europe, and more recently to Africa, but in most cases he blamed those who decided to subordinate the sailor’s task to a dangerous one – cocaine smuggling.

For the sailor, whose identity was revealed to Vijesti, Brazil was one of the bases and for years he sailed only with shipping companies whose voyages started or ended in that South American country.

“He boarded and disembarked in Brazil, where he strengthened his contacts with the Balkan mafia. The information we have obtained shows that initially, during inevitable social contacts and expensive parties, they gave him tips to do a favor for the Montenegrins who were having a hard time, and later he charged for these services. He was paid up to 30,000 euros for boarding those lines, and he remained clean, because the transport of cocaine was not his responsibility,” said Vijesti’s interlocutor from the foreign security service.

Vijesti’s investigation reveals a brutal reality: those who did not want to get involved in the dirty drug trade resisted pressure to become clan couriers, while many others who plunged into the illegal trade ended up underground or behind bars. Some who accepted the role of obedient soldiers managed to build business empires, which are now seen as synonymous with success in many cities of the former Yugoslavia, but with the inevitable smell of blood and fear.

During the conversation with a team of international researchers, Vijesti discovered, among other things, how much drug cartels pay for the cocaine trade, who dared to participate in this deadly game, but also which sailors paid the highest price through greed or disobedience, often with their lives.

The foreign security service interlocutor explains that the methods of smuggling cocaine from Latin America around the world are constantly changing and that the routes for cocaine are also determined by the development of technology.

“Due to the strengthened international security system regarding terrorism, piracy, smuggling, robberies… South American cartels, with which criminal groups all over the world collaborate, are adapting to new trends, so now, in addition to transoceanic ships, they use sports sailboats to transport cocaine, drug planes that take off from illegal airstrips throughout South America, handmade semi-submarines, smaller ships, but also ‘mules’ – people who transfer or transport smaller loads of cocaine by car, regular flights… It is important to emphasize that in all the criminal activities under investigation, criminals from the territory of the former Yugoslavia, as well as the Albanian mafia, take it upon themselves to recruit crews and obtain cocaine, which they distribute throughout Europe and Australia. That is why there is always someone from them at the bases from which cocaine is sent and that someone organizes part of the work,” said one of Vijesti’s interviewees.

The Foreign Intelligence Service agent responsible for the fight against drugs explains how much these services cost, that is, how many “pies” the failed sailors get. He explains that it all depends on the criminal organization that smuggles cocaine…

“International smuggling did not start with cocaine, it is simply a continuation of the decades-old ‘tradition’ of smuggling alcohol, coffee, clothes… with the fact that these things are paid less… When the drugs were sent to Europe and Australia, they were already there. There were ‘experienced’ sailors who simply changed their activity and expanded their network. In previous years, when they smuggled smaller quantities of up to 500 kilograms, the transport was 3,000 euros per kilogram – some were paid to bring drugs in and others to take them off the ship. So a crew member receives cocaine on board and has the duty to hide and store it from South America to Europe. This means that the cocaine passes unhindered through all other ports until it reaches the final port of discharge. The ships are complex and have enormous surfaces, so it happened, for example, that we knew that there were 1,200 kilograms of cocaine on board and 120 of us, with 20 Malinois shepherd dogs, took 30 hours spent on the ship until we found it… That’s why they paid 3,000 euros each for storage, and if the same people are responsible for transporting and bringing the quantity in and out of the port, the amount is double, they get 6,000 euros per kilogram, usually when they take the medicine off the ship, that is, when they pass through the port gate with it,” explained one of the international agents…

Medicines are not shipped unaccompanied

Vijesti’s interlocutor gave the example of a sailor from Bar who died while sailing on a container ship and was carrying cocaine from the ship on his back, in a backpack…

“He was the second officer of the deck… In the past, the international security system was not at the level of today, that is, the security of the entry and the amount of things and people (in-out port) and the ship in-out was lower, so the “dealers” from the Balkans, in order to earn more money, decided to take the cocaine themselves, knowing that the entry and exit of the port were easy and vulnerable and that the backpacks, bags or luggage of the sailors were not checked… Baranin first took 3,000 euros per kilo to put drugs on the ship, and then his money became so poor that he became reckless. The destination of the drugs he was responsible for was usually the port of Las Palmas. He put 20 kilos of cocaine in his backpack and went out, showed his ID at the port gate, reported it and went out to give it. In those 15 minutes he took 120,000 euros, but he did it several times during 24 hours, came back and presented a new round… On that occasion, they did not check the crew at the port gate in Las Palmas. Neither he nor the others who brought the drugs out that way. During the investigation, we discovered that, for example, a coordinated trio goes out and takes out 60 kilograms, and later in the day, while the ship is in port, they do it again. They did this with quantities of around 200 kilograms, depending on the number of people. It was also discovered that there were people who tied blocks of cocaine around their dogs and went out that way, as well as people who fainted from fear, and were discovered that way. “Baranin, who recently introduced the system of bringing in and taking out cocaine in a backpack, was set on fire in Spain, in a rental car,” the interlocutor told Vijesti…

He explained that other methods were employed when security measures were tightened, such as importing via containers or loading drug shipments on the open sea…

“After the security measures in the ports were tightened, they started using containers. They usually filled the containers with some goods in which they put cocaine, closed them and it entered the port because there were no container scanners and not all the goods could be unloaded at the entrance of the port, because hundreds of trucks were bringing containers per hour. Another method was to infiltrate the already existing schedules and shipments of companies that transport legal goods, that is, the personnel who filled their containers, which they charged depending on the quantity, and then put cocaine in the already prepared containers, after which they entered the port and traveled to the destination. Since these were container ships that changed lines, the shipment was almost never unaccompanied. Sailors were responsible for that part of the work and they were paid depending on the quantity, and their job was to wash the cocaine, remove it, move it and secure it. “Nobody even sends 200 kilos of cocaine from Brazil without supervision, without someone on board who knows where the drugs are and how much there is,” the newspaper’s source said.

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