BRAZEN

Argentine Police: International Cocaine Ring Run Out of Russian Embassy

Six held after traffickers’ drug haul was replaced with bags of flour fitted with trackers.

Authorities arrested a former Russian diplomatic worker and an Argentine police officer Thursday after discovering an “international cocaine trafficking organization” being run out of the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires. Patricia Bullrich, Argentina’s minister of security, announced the news in televised comments, saying a total of six people were arrested following a 14-month investigation into the drug operation between “Argentina, Russia, and Germany.” The investigation kicked off shortly after authorities seized 850 pounds of cocaine—valued at $60 million—from a school on the grounds of the Russian embassy in December 2016. Argentine border guards duped the alleged drug traffickers into revealing the path of their shipments by sneaking into the school and replacing the cocaine with bags of flour fitted with tracking devices. The shipment, sent to Russia in December 2017, was disguised as diplomatic luggage on an official Russian plane. But the cocaine “never traveled to Russia—only the flour,” Bullrich said Thursday.