"The FSB of Russia notes an increase in activity of European and Latin American organized criminal groups, aimed both at developing the Russian black market for drugs and using our territory for transiting cocaine to the countries of the European Union," the FSB said.
A new batch of cocaine from Latin America has been seized, the FSB said, adding that 492 kilograms (1,084 pounds) of the drug have been found in two trucks on the border with Belarus in Russia's Smolensk Region.
The security service mentioned three particularly large batches of drugs seized at Russian border crossing points lately, one of them weighing 2.3 tonnes and brought to Russia in March 2022 in a refrigerated container with bananas which had arrived at a port in the Leningrad Region from Ecuador.
Another 598 kilograms of cocaine were found in December in frozen meat brought to St. Petersburg by a container ship from Paraguay. Criminal drug smuggling cases were opened based on these facts.
The fight against drug trafficking is one of the regular tasks of the Russian security services. In April, about 699 kilograms of cocaine worth over 2.5 billion rubles ($33 million) were seized in the Moscow Region from members of an international criminal group. The FSB said that four foreign citizens were identified as suspects, with three of them being Colombian nationals and one coming from the European Union with the aim to get the cocaine in Moscow and further transport it to Europe.