Two Montenegrin sailors and one Lithuanian potentially face lengthy prison terms after Australian authorities discovered 375 million US dollars of cocaine on their cargo ship.
Perth Magistrates Court in Australia on Friday charged two Montenegrin citizens and one Lithuanian with smuggling 850 kilograms of cocaine that were seized on the cargo ship St Pinot on May 31.
Australian authorities reported that Pinot’s captain, M. B., and its chief engineer, R.V., both from Montenegro, were charged with smuggling cocaine worth 375 million US dollars, believed to have come from South America.
On May 31, Australian Federal Police and Border Force officers discovered the 29 packages of cocaine after receiving an SOS call from a smaller cabin cruiser off Rottnest Island.
“Royal Australian Navy clearance divers retrieved 29 large packages wrapped in blue plastic from the water and another package was retrieved once the tank was drained. Each of the 29 packages contains numerous one-kilogram blocks of cocaine,” the police said.
Police reported that two Montenegrin citizens who had been on the cabin cruiser were arrested In Perth while the third member of the crew was arrested in Sydney as he tried to board a flight.
Police said they were charged with attempting to import a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug, stressing they face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted.
Trafficking has become a lucrative trade for some seafarers in Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic of some 630,000 people steeped in maritime history but which for decades has served as a transit point for illicit cigarettes and drugs.
According to official data, since 2018, Montenegrin sailors have been arrested in seven separate police operations around the world, involving the seizure of more than 30 tonnes of drugs.
In October 2009, the country made world headlines after two tonnes of cocaine were seized on a boat off the Uruguayan coast in an international police operation codenamed Balkan Warrior. Montenegrin Darko Saric was named the mastermind of a powerful Balkan organized crime group smuggling huge quantities of cocaine into Europe.
Over the past seven years, at least 50 people have been killed in Montenegro, Serbia, Austria, and Greece in a turf war between two rival gangs – the Kavac and Skaljari – who trace their roots to the Montenegrin coastal town of Kotor. The conflict kicked off in 2015 after 300 kilos of cocaine vanished from an apartment in Valencia, Spain.
In March last year, Montenegro’s Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment warned of the impact on the maritime industry of the involvement of Montenegrin sailors in drug trafficking.
Balkan crime gangs are active in trying to traffic drugs from Latin America to Europe via ports. Some of these gangs have grown into networks with a global reach. Europol has estimated they are behind at least 30 per cent of the cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Europe.
