Aug
16
Two more Bulgarians have been arrested after the seizure of three tonnes of cocaine on a merchant ship off southern Spain, including the suspected mastermind, the Bulgarian government said Thursday.
All 21 Bulgarian sailors on the Bulgaria-owned Saint Nikolay boarded 80 kilometres (50 miles) off Cadiz on Wednesday were arrested, plus six Colombians in Madrid and four Spaniards in the north-western region of Galicia, Spanish officials said.
Bulgaria’s interior ministry confirmed the arrests on Thursday, adding that “two more Bulgarian citizens were detained in a follow-up operation on Bulgarian territory.”
One of them, a 37-year-old man from Sofia, was the alleged chief organiser of the smuggling operation. The other man, aged 46, was in charge of hiring some of the ship’s crew, the ministry said.
Bulgarian criminals have long been involved in international cocaine smuggling rings. Spain is the main gateway to Europe for cocaine from Latin America and for cannabis from neighbouring Morocco. Police regularly make large seizures.
Sofia extradited to Italy in late July one of its alleged cocaine-trafficking lords, Evelin Banev, nicknamed “Brendo,” accused of trafficking 40 tonnes of cocaine from Latin America to Europe between 2004 and 2007.
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