The Dorogomilovsky Court of Moscow announced a verdict in the case of smuggling “embassy cocaine” – almost 400 kilograms of the drug found in the Russian embassy in Argentina. The main defendant, Andrei Kovalchuk, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Former embassy caretaker Ali Abyanov received 17 years in prison, and Kovalchuk’s partners Vladimir Kalmykov and Ishtimir Khudzhamov received 16 and 13 years, respectively.
Earlier, on December 13, a jury found the group guilty of attempting to smuggle drugs, unanimously declaring that all defendants deserved leniency.
The Dossier closely monitors courts in Russia and Argentina. Here’s what we found out.
🔹 The main accused, Andrei Kovalchuk, could have been recruited by the intelligence services back in 2014, having been caught smuggling drugs from Europe. Since then, our sources say, he has been involved in drug trafficking under the guise of the FSB, including using Nikolai Patrushev’s plane.
🔹 Despite the “official” discovery of cocaine in November 2016 at the Russian embassy, a month earlier Kovalchuk was on the radar of FSB officers – according to them, on an unrelated case related to the suitcases.
🔹 There are many inconsistencies in the Russian and Argentine cases. And there are plenty of suspicious aspects in the actions of security forces in both countries. It seems that neither Russia nor Argentina want to look for the truth.
🔹 FSB officers who spoke in court claim that the accused Kalmykov, Khudzhamov and Abyanov knew about the true contents of the suitcases, but direct evidence of this was never presented.
🔹 Meanwhile, in Argentina the process is still at the debate stage. Evidence of the guilt of the Argentine defendants in the case – the former local policeman Bliznyuk and his friend Chikalo – is terribly small. Their accusations were based on poorly translated phone taps and the testimony of embassy security officer Oleg Vorobyov, who later stated that he simply listed all of Kovalchuk’s contacts known to him.
About what we learned new from criminal cases in Russia and Argentina – on the Dossier website
https://cocaina.dossier.center/
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