Russian border guards have seized more than 1 metric ton of cocaine from Nicaragua at the Great Port of St. Petersburg, the Federal Customs Service (FTS) said Wednesday.
“The smugglers hid 1,000 briquettes with compressed white powder in the upper part of a cargo module,” the FTS said on the messaging app Telegram.
Images shared by the customs agency showed dozens of brown packages labeled with the letters “BBB” and “DIOR.”
A criminal case was launched after an expert valued the cocaine at 11 billion rubles ($122.7 million).
The smugglers face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of large-scale drug trafficking, an FTS spokesperson said.
The FTS added that agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) assisted in the drug bust.