2023-06-02 20:02:12
A shipment of 800 kilos of cocainevalued at more than 200 million dollarswas seized in Australia, which found it on board a cargo ship that had passed through the Santa Fe port of San Lorenzo, near the city of Rosariowhich led to the initiation of an investigation involving the Argentine Customs and the Narcocrime Prosecutor’s Office (Procunar).
The ship had also passed through the port of La Plata.
According to the first investigative tasks, the Argentine investigations follow the hypothesis that points out that the drug could have been loaded on the high seas by a smaller vessel, through ropes and the “dop on/drop off” modality.
Australia seized more than 800 kilos of cocaine from a ship from Argentina
Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) reported on its official sites that the shipment was discovered on May 25, after the authorities of that country received data indicating that the drug was going to be thrown into the sea from a cargo ship to be collected.
But a day before, on the 24th, by chance, members of the Western Australia Police (WAPF) and Volunteer Marine Rescue came to the aid of the crew of a 10-meter-long cruise ship, called No Fixed Address, which had requested help near Rottnest Island, some 20 kilometers off the coast of the city of Perth, allegedly having engine trouble.
Authorities reported that there were three men aboard that vessel who appeared to have little navigational experience, who, it was established, they had bought the boat with cash the day before they set out on the voyagewhich aroused suspicion.
Soon after, the Australian Border Force (ABF) and the AFP began investigating bulk carriers in the area at the same time as the other vessel, thus identifying a bulk carrier, the Merchant Vessel. ST Pinot, which matched the description obtained during the investigation into the drug trafficking operation that was to take place.
ABF officers determined that this ship had traveled from South America and boarded it in order to search it and interview the crew.
Once transferred to the port of Fremantle, south of Perth, the troops found suspicious packages submerged in a ballast tank full of water.
The cocaine was in packages inside a tank
Through an operation carried out by divers from the Australian Navy, 29 large packages wrapped in blue plastic were found in that tank that contained smaller packages inside, of approximately one kilo of cocaine, for a total of 800 kilos.
Within the framework of the investigation, the investigators determined that the ship containing the drugs had passed through the Santa Fe port of San Lorenzo, for which reason the Argentine Customs filed a complaint in which the Procunar was intervened to initiate an investigation. investigation in an attempt to establish where the cocaine was shitted.
Customs sources told the Argentine agency Télam that the ship it had passed through Montevideo before San Lorenzo and then touched kilometer 171 of the Common Zone, near La Plata; and that he was loaded with soybeans in the warehouse area.
In turn, the Australian police indicated that, if it had reached the streets of that country, the seized drugs could have been sold for an estimated value of 212 million dollars.
How old are those arrested for cocaine trafficking?
The authorities also reported that after the discovery of the drug, the three men who had been on the cruise, ages 21, 25 and 29, were arrested on Wednesday, May 31, two of them in Perth and the third, which is Lithuanian, in Sydney, when trying to board a flight abroad.
All three face charges for the crime of drug trafficking, for which they could be sentenced to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
Commenting on the operation, AFP Deputy Commissioner Pryce Scanlan said: “The seizure demonstrates the importance of law enforcement collaboration: AFP is working tirelessly with its partners to disrupt organized crime attempts to import large quantities of drugs. illicit to Australia and profit at the expense of the community.”
“The illicit drug supply chain is rife with violence and if this amount of cocaine had reached Australian streets, it would have spread through our suburbs, fueling more violence, crime and drug addiction,” he added.
For its part, the Procunar ordered a series of proceedings, including the analysis of film records at the San Lorenzo terminal during the ship’s stay, which arrived there on April 9 at 8:45 p.m. and left for Australia on the 22nd of that month.
Afip-Customs investigates the ship that left Argentina
In a press release released this afternoon, Afip-Customs indicated that, according to the management of the Renova Terminal, the ship “was subjected to an inspection in the hold and carried out the corresponding anchoring# and that” from the first analysis of cameras, no , irrefutably, maneuvers compatible with the fact that the contamination has occurred there.
“However, it continues to be analyzed together with the Argentine Naval Prefecture, looking for new security cameras that can confirm or rule out the possibility that the contamination has been carried out there or near the unloading area in the Common Zone,” he clarified.
In turn, it indicated that “in the event that it is not possible to determine that the drug was imposed in the ports where the ship moored, the hypothesis grows that the substance found could have been imposed on the ship by means of a smaller vessel in the maritime zone. during or after the last refueling event, using the same mode that was attempted to be removed at destination, under the drop-on/drop-off mode”.
And in this sense, he added that the images provided by Homeland Security Investigations, which collaborates with the investigation, “ropes are observed tied to the bags that, according to the records, could give strength” to this line of investigation.
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