MADRID, October 18 (RIA Novosti, Juan Cobo) - Five men detained by Spanish police last week on board a vessel carrying a cargo of more than three metric tons of cocaine are Russians, as is the captain, the Russian consul in Madrid said Tuesday.
A Spanish police unit boarded the IVI-1 vessel last Monday in a special operation codenamed Aguayro. Three Spanish citizens, a Columbian, Argentine and Brazilian were simultaneously apprehended in Madrid and the Canary Islands. The owner of the boat, which was flying the flag of Panama, is among the suspects.
This is the second time Spanish law enforcement agencies have detained Russian sailors for suspected drug smuggling. A group of 13 seamen from Russia and other former Soviet republics are serving a 10-year prison sentence after they were arrested for cocaine smuggling in 1999. The court did not accept their argument that they did not know the true nature of their cargo, which had been loaded in secret in Panama.
