Police Say Cocaine Trafficker Suspects Arrested

Georgian Interior Ministry said on Thursday it had detained five members of “international drug cartel” engaged in trafficking of large amount of cocaine from Latin America into Turkey via Georgia.

The most recent case of trafficking by the group, the ministry said, occurred in July 2009, when 90 kilos of cocaine, hidden among scrap metal on cargo vessel, was shipped to Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti. Reported shipped cocaine was not seized. The ministry said that cocaine, hidden in a car’s bumper, was then smuggled to Turkey. Police said it seized EUR 1.7 million hidden in the ground of yard of a house in western Georgia, belonging to one of the arrested persons.

Police said a Georgian-born Greek citizen, now living in Spain, led the group, organizing shipments. The Interior Ministry said that his five accomplices in Georgia were arrested.

“This is the first case when such large amount of cocaine emerged on the Georgian market,” Shota Utiashvili, head of the interior ministry’s information and analytical department, said.

He said that operation was not coordinated with foreign law enforcement agencies, although added that the Georgian Interior Ministry planned to send investigators to Spain as part of ongoing investigation into the case.

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