So much for the tuna fairy tale: how cocaine smuggling from Ecuador works
Representatives of the drug business from Latin America regularly try to deliver huge quantities of cocaine to Russia. FSB operatives intercepted a large shipment of drugs that arrived in the Northern Capital disguised as frozen fish. The alleged organizer of the channel with assets worth hundreds of millions of rubles has been detained. This is not the first time that a huge amount of the most expensive drug has been seized in St. Petersburg. What is behind the regular attempts of cocaine cartels to oversaturate the Russian black market — in the material of Izvestia.
Instead of fish giblets
FSB officers have stopped the activities of an international smuggling channel in the port of St. Petersburg. The investigators found at least 500 kg of cocaine in a cargo container that arrived from Ecuador. The attackers showed ingenuity: the drug was hidden inside frozen tuna carcasses.
According to the FSB Public Relations Center, the drugs were intended for further distribution in Russia. During the operational search activities, a Russian citizen was detained on suspicion of organizing the delivery. A criminal case has been opened under the article on attempted sale of narcotic drugs on an especially large scale (part 3 of art. 30, Part 5 of art. 228.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the defendant has been arrested.
An incriminating luxury
Searches at the detainee's place of residence confirmed the scale of his income from criminal business. Law enforcement officers seized five premium class cars with a total value of at least 130 million rubles. In addition, there were 13 expensive watches in the collection of the defendant, whose total price exceeds $ 1.3 million. Crypto wallets with assets worth about $613 thousand were found on digital media, which were also seized during the search. The total value of the seized property is estimated at more than 300 million rubles.
Earlier, a native of Khabarovsk was detained in Moscow, in whose car, apartment and garage box over 22 kg of cocaine were seized. As previously reported by Izvestia, 40 vacuum packages with powder, 25 bundles and one compressed briquette in polymer packaging were seized. All products were promptly sent for research, which confirmed that they contained cocaine and mephedrone.
The Mexican Trail
The delivery of a large shipment specifically for Izvestia was analyzed by retired justice colonel and expert on international drug trafficking Sergey Pelikh.
— It follows from the press release that the container with cargo was traveling from Ecuador to Russia on a direct flight, ‑ says the expert. — There may have been an overload of the container along the way, but the route was generally straight. As for the purchase of drugs in Ecuador, it can be assumed that the transaction was carried out at an average minimum price of about $15-20 per gram.
A simple mathematical calculation suggests that the cartel's losses averaged about $8.8 million. According to the expert, in fact, the drug was purchased "first—hand" - from a specific regional mafia structure or through intermediaries in Mexico, as often happens.
Local groups tend to work for the Mexicans. Then there are the associated costs: tuna itself costs a certain amount of money, plus the packaging of the drug — vacuum bags in which it was placed in raw fish, as can be seen in the published video, and subsequent freezing, the expert explains. In addition, the cost of the refrigerated container itself and its shipment from Ecuador to Russia is no more than $ 10 thousand.
"These are the main costs incurred by the buyers and transit companies of this batch,— says Pelich. — Therefore, their losses turned out to be minimal in the end.
The arithmetic of the party
In the wholesale market today, a kilogram of a high-quality drug costs on average from $ 30 to 40 thousand, the Izvestia interlocutor notes. We are talking about a wholesale batch of 50 kg or more of a concentrated drug.
"How exactly they were going to distribute and implement it is anyone's guess now,— Pelich says. — The drug, which is sold at retail and in clubs in a diluted form, costs about $150 to $300 per gram, depending on the income level of customers and the place of consumption.
A 500 kg batch is a serious volume of goods, which is enough to supply Moscow and St. Petersburg.‑St. Petersburg for about six months. Domestic "majors" consume such volumes in six months without any problems, the retired colonel believes.
"As for how the shipment was discovered, I'm pretty sure it wasn't an accidental arrest," the expert continues. — A huge number of containers with fish are being shipped to Russia — thousands of them. Most likely, an agent network worked: someone involved was recruited, he passed on the container number, and this container was purposefully "picked out" from the general flow and carefully searched.
Currently, there are no more than three major players in the cocaine supply market in Russia, Pelikh estimates.
— Of course, they can compete with each other, theoretically, they can "rent out" each other, but, in my opinion, this is unlikely: everyone has certain agreements and "roofs", and loud scandals are unprofitable for them. It is more accurate to assume that we are talking about internal conflicts within one of the groups: someone could have been sidelined, deprived of a share, in response he gave information, after which a chain of events led to the withdrawal of this party.
— To date, there is no excitement on the shadow marketplaces where cocaine is sold, — says Pelich. — The price has remained at the same level. This means that there is a certain stock of goods on the territory of the country.
World drug trafficking records
Overproduction in New World countries may be behind the massive supply of elite drugs. The St. Petersburg seizure is just one of the links in the chain of high—profile operations against the drug mafia that swept the world and Russia in particular in 2025-2026. Spain became the record holder in Europe: off the coast of the Canary Islands, law enforcement officers intercepted a ship with 30 tons of cocaine worth more than 812 million euros. This operation is one of the largest in the history of Europe. A little earlier, the same Spanish police seized 11 tons of drugs in containers with salt.
Huge shipments are being seized in the Benelux countries. In early 2026, Dutch customs seized almost 4.8 tons of cocaine hidden in electromagnets from Ecuador, making it one of the largest shipments in the kingdom's history. International experts attribute the record surge in seizures, particularly in Mexico (more than three tons per operation), to increased demand for drugs ahead of major international events.
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