| Colombians brought cocaine in barrels Yesterday, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow announced a verdict against four members of a criminal group that intended to flood Russia with cocaine. The Bogotina drug cartel from Colombia planned to be the main supplier of the drug. However, employees of the GUBNON Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (now they work in the GUBOP) managed to infiltrate the drug cartel and detain a number of its representatives .
The criminal case was investigated by the Investigative Committee (IC) under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. His employees managed to establish that in 2001, an entrepreneur from the Kaliningrad region, Valery Pavlenko, through his friend Luis, a native of Colombia who settled in Moscow, contacted representatives of the Bogotina drug cartel. Soon, 1.6 kg of cocaine was sent from Colombia to Russia along with a shipment of tights. However, French customs officers discovered the drug and notified GUBNON employees about it. They set up surveillance of the cargo and soon detained its recipient, Valery Pavlenko. However, the story did not end there. The Bogotin drug cartel began to look for new buyers in Russia for its goods, in the role of which were GUBNON employees. Under the guise of “influential Russian mafiosi,” they agreed with one of the leaders of the drug cartel, Hernan Ocampo Jiminez, to organize several deliveries of cocaine. The drug came to Moscow dissolved in ordinary menthol oil. In order to evaporate cocaine from the liquid, Ocampo first sent his chemist Serafin Alvarado Bautista to the capital, and then flew in himself. As a result, both Colombians were detained. Ocampo denied his guilt during interrogations, but during his last word at the trial he unexpectedly confessed to everything.
“By the way, even if this court decides that they are guilty, the verdict will not yet come into force. There will still be time to appeal it in the Moscow City Court. And you have already trumpeted to the whole world that the drug lords have been imprisoned. But their children are small - how does it feel for them to hear such things about their fathers (you’ve even reached Colombia), and they have a hard time in a pre-trial detention center - since they’re a drug lord, there’s a lot of money, so you have to pay,” - in this manner the lawyers of the accused communicated with the press before the verdict.
The defense also tried to prevent the press from attending the trial, explaining that without the permission of the accused they could neither be filmed nor their speech broadcast. But judge Elena Filippova did not cooperate with the lawyers: “The court is open. So you can sit and film.”
However, there was no need to sit. Almost three hours of the announcement of the verdict in the stuffy courtroom were traditionally spent standing. The judge, sweltering from the heat in a thick black robe, was even forced to take a half-hour break. “Dear press, you must first of all raise the issue of introducing a summer uniform for judges. Otherwise, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have put on this robe today,” the judge joked before continuing her speech after the break. Her main audience, Ocampo Jimenez and Alvarado Bautista, were unlikely to understand all the words from Ms. Filippova's hours-long speech. The translator assigned to them conveyed only the opening speech of the judge and the terms of the sentence - 13 and ten years of maximum security, respectively, for the illegal manufacture, acquisition, storage and transportation of cocaine. No one waited for a special reaction from the accused - they stood almost the entire trial, resting their foreheads against the bars of the cage, and continued to stand. They did not look towards their former accomplices - Valery Pavlenko and Luis (they are under recognizance not to leave the place) -. And they tried not to pay attention to their “colleagues.” Louis also hid his face from the cameras in a scarf. But neither he nor Pavlenko should be afraid of the Russian Themis - taking into account their repentance and assistance to the investigation, the court sentenced Pavlenko to seven and a half years in prison suspended, and Louis to four years suspended. Alexander SHVAREV, Yuri MATSARSKY |
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