The Insider:Ministry of Weird Affairs. How the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and intelligence agencies help supply cocaine to Russia

At the end of September, the Dossier Center published a major story on the supply of cocaine to Russia through the embassy in Argentina, which cast doubt on the official conclusions of the investigation that Russian diplomats and officials turned out to be innocent.
The Insider’s investigation, which has seen both Argentine and Russian materials in the case, dismisses the latter doubts – the Russian ambassador and other high-ranking diplomats were active organizers of the cocaine drug trafficking, and Russian authorities have persistently resisted punishment of the guilty, ignoring evidence, obstructing the investigation and orchestrating hacking attacks.

The official version – “joint special operation”

On February 22, 2018, Argentina’s Interior Minister Patricia Bullrich gave a press conference saying that Argentina, along with Russia, had concluded an investigation into a narco-criminal group that had “used or attempted to use Russia’s diplomatic mail for smuggling.” Bullrich estimated the 389 kg of cocaine found at $50 million /market price is about $11 million/.

According to the official version, Russian Ambassador Viktor Coronelli contacted Bullrich late in the evening of 13 December 2016 and went to a meeting “accompanied by three FSB officers”. He was told that the premises of the embassy, as he suspected, contained drugs. The Argentine police sometime in the middle of the night delivered 389 kg of flour, replaced the cocaine found and established traceability of the suitcases. According to the same official version, it was the Argentine police officer, the Russian-born Ivan Bliznyuk, who tried to take the suitcases away. The second arrested is his accomplice Alexander Chicallo, president of the “Latin American Patrons Club” /for example, together with Bliznyuk, vice-president of this club, they gave the Kazan icon of the Mother of God to the Orthodox parish in the city of Mar del Plata/.

Soon after that press conference in Russia, the German resident was extradited Andrey Kovalchuk / him Bullrich names “Mr. K., the organizer of the delivery /. Moreover, since November 2019, the hearings on the pre-trial detention measures have unclearly been held behind closed doors. The only embassy employee arrested is the head of the economic department Ali Abyanovwho is also on trial in Russia. The Russian side, by the way, assures Argentina that Abyanov was fired from the embassy as early as August 16, 2016. How he then managed in December to carry the load in the school to the embassy, as the official version says, remains unclear.

Surprisingly, the report about the suspicious suitcases, according to the case file /page 7 of the indictment in case No. 17882/2016 of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Argentina/, was drawn up by the “Deputy Chief of the FSB for the fight against drugs S. If this is true, it is not clear why the ambassador reported the find only a month and a half later.

It appears from the materials in the Argentine criminal case that there was at least one superior over Kovalchuk, Konstantin Loskutnikov, who called himself Baron von Bossner. He is the leader of the same “Club of Orthodox Patrons” in Berlin, in whom the Russian investigation for some reason showed no interest, and the Argentine investigation limited itself to a formal verification of the links with Argentina and did not present him as a defendant. By the way, the investigators in Argentina noted that the criminal group consisted of a “minimum” of those arrested and did not claim an exhaustive list.

After the suitcases were placed under surveillance, the Argentines have been on hold for almost a year, figuring out the scheme by which the Bliznyuk and Kovalchuk were trying to get them out of the embassy. The scheme was simple: Ivan Bliznyuk, as a lecturer at the Higher Institute of the Ministry of the Interior in the autonomous city of Buenos Aires, organized friendly trips of Argentine police officers to Russia for experience exchange conferences. Under the guise of such trips, he intended to load the suitcases of cocaine onto the official delegation’s plane. In general, Bliznyuk has organized such trips in previous years, but whether there was smuggling involved, the official investigation did not report. Bliznyuk had proposed to send 5 Argentine cadets to Russia, but Kovalchuk thought that this was not enough and asked to arrange a visit of 100 people – “four platoons” to participate in the parade on 9 May 2017 in St. Petersburg.

Bliznyuk not only used the status of a police officer, but even referred to himself as a “liaison officer with the Russian embassy.” No such position officially exists, but at the Russian embassy, Bliznyuk was indeed an insider, helping with translations and providing security. Moreover, he also had contacts in the Russian Foreign Ministry itself, where he “carefully clarified” the attitude towards Kovalchuk’s personality during protocol trips to the Russian Federation, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Taiano, stated on pages 4, 8 and 39 of the indictment. With Bliznyuk’s help, Andrei Kovalchuk planned to secure the delivery of “his personal suitcases” on the planes of these official delegations to Russia using diplomatic pouches. According to the official investigation, he did this “by deceiving Russian diplomats”.

Alongside the diplomats, Bliznyuk and Kowalczuk have also tried to get the support of the police responsible for airport security /in Argentina this is a separate sector/. On May 22, 2017, Bliznyuk wrote a letter to the head of the airport police in Argentina, Alejandro Griot, inviting him to Russia, again signing off as the “liaison representative to the Russian Embassy.”

Griot’s visit to the Krasnodar University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation successfully took place on June 13, where he received a medal and a diploma from the hands of the head of the university in question. Ivan Bliznyuk personally accompanied him on the trip, who stayed in Russia until July 15 “for a meeting in St. Petersburg with Konstantin /Bossner/,” the indictment states on page 29.

Bliznyuk and Kovalchuk relied on the visits of the cadets and Griot to transfer the suitcases of cocaine to Moscow. But they did not know that all their actions were already being monitored and recorded by the Argentine authorities, who only allowed controlled drug shipments to take place when they were ready to do so. But during the first two trips, they prevented the smugglers from taking the cocaine out for different reasons. According to the arrangements of the Argentine investigation with the Russian embassy, diplomats at the last minute invented reasons to prevent the suitcases from being taken – for example, the new head of the economic department, Igor Rogov, “found himself on a business trip” in Mar del Plata, where he allegedly took the keys to the premises with the suitcases. Kovalchuk arranged a charter flight – a “Bossner plane” – to transport the suitcases.

But embassy official Oleg Vorobyov says the ambassador is absent, and only he can authorize sending a van with immunity to transport the suitcases directly to the plane, but the deputy ambassador does not have a diplomatic passport. “It can’t be!”-Kowalchuk is very upset, but nothing can be done. Embassy officials Oleg Vorobyov and Igor Rogov are instructed to tell Kovalchuk that only in December 2017 will he be able to take everything he wants on the plane of the official Russian delegation that will carry the ambassador’s belongings /page 72 of the indictment/.

Subsequently, according to a video of the Argentine police, the suitcases with flour in a package similar to diplomatic mail were transported by plane RA-96023 of the special air squad “Russia” /usually used by Patrushev/. Interfax sources from the Security Council have unclearly denied that Patrushev’s plane was involved in the operation. And the choice of this particular board at all would be a bit odd really if it was just a drug operation. Therefore, the appearance of this plane in Argentina seems no less strange if Patrushev was personally involved. Patrushev’s plane very often appears in these countries and at this time when the Kremlin has to cover up some serious scandal.

For example, Patrushev’s plane showed up in Thailand when Nastya “Rybka” Vashukhevich was arrested there, threatening to give the US information about her lover Deripaska’s negotiations to interfere in the US elections. Patrushev appeared in Serbia at the very moment when the scandal with the arrested representatives of the Russian special services who tried to organise a coup in Montenegro was breaking out. And this same Patrushev, after the start of the investigation into the Russian crashed Boeing MH17, flew to Malaysia, where he tried to persuade the country to challenge the JIT’s conclusions. So what happened in Argentina anyway – a diplomatic scandal involving drug trafficking in the Russian diplomatic pouch or a special operation in the course of which the valiant Russian diplomats foiled an attempt to export cocaine?

What actually happened in Argentina

As soon as the official version, full of contradictions and innuendos, was made public, an alternative one emerged – the cocaine in the embassy was discovered not by the embassy staff, but by the Argentine police, who uncovered the long-existing drug trafficking scheme through the diplomatic mail. But after the negotiations at the political level, Moscow managed to cover up the scandal and to appoint ordinary contractors as sacrificial lambs.

Hints that the alternative version is the correct one can be seen in Argentina’s official statements. Bullrich notes that “the drug was obtained from Colombia and, as we believe, it may have left the country by diplomatic pouch and we can imagine it ended up in Argentina the same way.” In March 2020, a court in Argentina refused to place Alexander Chicalo under house arrest, once again recalling that the gang “intended to use diplomatic pouches for the transportation of drugs.”

An employee at the Russian embassy has himself admitted that he has been packing the contraband in diplomatic mail for many years and this is the main thing. In the materials of the case there is a testimony of Ali Abyanov, who admits that he packed and “asked to pack” /who exactly is not specified/ the suitcases of Kovalchuk as diplomatic mail back in 2012 and 2014. The first such suitcase was exported to Russia via Uruguay by cargo plane, two others by military plane. Abyanov claims he thought they contained “wine, coffee and biscuits”, but he says the same about the last 12 suitcases of Kovalchuk that he left at the embassy school in 2015-2016 /first two, then 10 more/. Abyanov’s words about exports through Uruguay are particularly important, since in the intercepted conversation between Chicalo and Bliznyuk they comment that earlier smuggling had gone through Uruguay and wonder why this route has changed /and they are obviously not discussing biscuits, although they do not specifically use “cocaine”, replacing it now with macaroni, now with cognac, now with skins or a painting/.

After analyzing all the conversations, the Argentine investigation decided that all the people involved in the smuggling knew perfectly well that they were carrying cocaine using the embassy’s channels, and came up with different versions due to fears of eavesdropping
/”the Americans are bugging everybody,” Bliznyuk and Chicalo say in the October 11, 2017 conversation/. The same day, Chikalo tells Bliznyuk / and by then the export attempts have already failed several times and the partners are starting to get worried / that he once found odor-masking disks in the suitcases that Kowalczuk left him. Neither for furs nor for cognac, and still less for the transmission of a picture, are special anti-odour agents needed to wean service dogs. And it was such means that were found during the search of the suitcases with the cocaine at the embassy on 14 December 2016, the indictment states /pp. 55 of the document/.
The Foreign Office started to refute any hints about the use of diplomatic mail, but very unsuccessfully and thus only deepened suspicions: ‘Nothing has been sent by diplomatic mail, it is impossible. Such statements are simply ignorance of what diplomatic mail is”, says diplomat and professor at MGIMO / Moscow State University of International Relations, ed.Alexander Panov, adding that not only technical staff at the embassy, but also ordinary diplomats do not have direct access to the formation of diplomatic mail. But if the technicians themselves do not have this access, what were the arrested Bliznyuk, Kovalchuk and Abyanov relying on? Or were they not acting alone after all?

Unofficially, the Argentine authorities are talking about everything bluntly. Back at the end of 2018, the Colombian publication Semana published the investigation “Diplomatic Drug Cases”, containing an interview with anonymous Argentine investigators unhappy that the investigation had focused on minor characters. They claim that the practice of drug trafficking in Russian diplomatic mail is common to other Latin American countries.

Among them, one of the investigators in the Argentine gendarmerie states:

“Mid-level diplomatic officials like Abyanov and the other detainees cannot carry out an operation of this scale. As for the volume of 400 kg, this is obviously not the first time this has happened, because drug traffickers do not risk sending a first shipment in such quantity if they are not sure it will reach its destination. Furthermore, no other officials have been charged in the case who were apparently complicit and that is because they were not ordinary diplomats in the embassy. After all, one of them worked for the SVR /Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, ed.

The connection of the accused in the case with the SVR was confirmed to the magazine by three sources. Referring to the investigation, Semana also wrote that Abyanov had exported drugs from Uruguay at least three times using his diplomatic status.
The materials in the case confirm the words of the Argentine police officers. For example, on October 11, 2017, Officer Bliznyuk and his accomplice, Chikalo, discussed the transportation of the diplomatic luggage cases over the phone and mentioned in passing that before Kovalchuk “got into a fight with the ambassador,” he regularly carried drugs in the diplomatic pouch:

“What do you think of our mutual friend’s suggestion?
-You know, if you have a relationship of trust with these people, it wouldn’t cost anything to carry this as diplomatic pouch. But in some form the embassy has to be involved.
-It is understood, after all, the machine has diplomatic immunity.
-First, the machine has diplomatic immunity, second, documents that say it’s diplomatic mail, something like that. Otherwise, you’ll say, “We want to go unchecked,” and they’ll say, “Yeah? Open everything.”
-Now that the channel is covered with diplomatic mail, because he has quarrelled with the ambassador, he does not know what to do. Maybe something along those lines is going on. Can you imagine the volume of drug trafficking that has gone on from here?
-Yes, of course.
-But if he carried them before, why can’t he now?
-Because he’s currently in a fight with the ambassador. Earlier, he provided him with a car, a van with documents that this was diplomatic pouch. And now he doesn’t know what to do. “I’ll turn to Ivan.” And they used to do just that.”

The “quarrel with the Ambassador” was, by all accounts, nothing of the kind, but the beginning of the operational actions when Ambassador Coronelli, within the framework of the agreement reached with Argentina, “betrayed” Bliznyuk and Chicalo. The fact that Russian diplomats were precisely participants and not whistleblowers of cocaine smuggling is evidenced by the hacking attack on the server of the police in Argentina. The Insider has a report by Argentine intelligence agencies Tetris Botnet dated May 29, 2018 and quotes:

“On May 21, the Directorate of Technology Management of the Airport Security Police inaugurated a number of events targeting the Ministry of Security and its management. The most significant event is the mass scanning of the ports of servers whose IP addresses correspond to the official servers of the Airport Security Police, the Argentine Maritime Prefecture, the Argentine National Gendarmerie and the Ministry of Security, with an IP address belonging to Russia. Subsequently, brute-force attacks were carried out against the airport security police mail server using SMTP protocol with 14 IP addresses / previously linked to hacking attacks / located in different countries.”

Argentina’s intelligence services admit that the attacks were aimed at extracting information from a specific server, as well as creating a “smokescreen” by attacking several servers simultaneously. Hacking attacks aimed at obtaining information for investigations into Russia are a typical phenomenon. For example, hackers from the GRU tried to gain access to the Swiss Radiological and Chemical-Bacteriological Analysis Center in Spitz, which analyzed samples of Novichok after the Salisbury poisoning, and they also attacked the JIT servers to obtain documents from the investigation of the crashed Boeing MH17 and even got some documents from there, but of secondary importance.

Interestingly, on the day of the attack (May 21, 2018), work on the indictment was completed, i.e. the Russian special services probably wanted to see the document, which they could not obtain directly – it is only handed over to the court. It is hard to imagine that the Russian authorities were so concerned about the contents of the indictment if their role was only to assist the investigation.

Curiously, Ambassador Coronelli, who allegedly according to the official version heroically captured the smugglers, was quietly transferred to Mexico at the investigative stage. According to The Insider’s source close to the investigation in Argentina, this is directly linked to his involvement in the cocaine scheme. No less interesting is the fact that on 20 December 2016, just six days after Coronelli, allegedly on his own initiative, contacted the Argentine Interior Ministry, Piotr Polshikov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, was assassinated in Moscow, Chief Adviser to the Department for Latin America at the Russian Foreign Ministry, and before that Head of Department at that Department. The Russian Foreign Ministry immediately demanded that the murder not be linked to the cocaine scandal and described it as “an unfortunate accident, unrelated to the official work of the deceased”. But when information leaked to the media that Polshikov had not just “died” but had been killed by a shot to the head, and no gun was found next to the body, it became clear that it was not possible to brush this off, nor to attribute an “accident” to him. The case has not yet been solved and no other versions of the murder, apart from links to drug trafficking, have been offered.

Von Baron and the Kremlin

Kovalchuk’s boss, Konstantin Loskutnikov, quite seriously posing as Baron von Bossner, at first glance seems like a comic character, perpetually packaged in a three-piece suit, with a wide and bushy beard, and always with a cigar in his teeth. On the internet he is colorful, apparently on demand, with interviews in which he talks about his unprecedented success /and some of these interviews he publishes in his own magazine about gorgeous life, distributed for free/. He points to the cigarette business as his official source of income, which does exist /he rents factories in Nicaragua and Dominican Republic/, but his profits are highly questionable.

According to The Insider’s source in Bossner’s Berlin office, the business is “rachitic” and cannot be a major source for his “charity.” According to German trade register data seen by The Insider, Bossner’s Golden Mile GmbH brand only registered a profit of €197,000 per year for the first time in 2018, and by then was declaring minuscule annual losses of up to €800,000.

Bossner’s office looks the way a law firm existing only for cover should look. Igor Eidmann, a sociologist living in Berlin, says he came to this office two months before the Argentine story broke: ‘I needed an editor for the video about Russian propaganda. Friends gave me this address. I go there and see three signs on the door – Cognac and Bossner cigars, “Orthodox Patrons” and “slot machines.” All these companies were in one office, somewhere around 6 rooms. The editor was planning to work on the video right there /Bossner also maintains a YouTube channel, one video gets 20 to 200 views/. I say to him, “Look what, you ask your superiors, and you have some Orthodox patrons, it’s probably connected to the Kremlin.” And then this one called me and said that his superiors had forbidden him to edit an opposition video.”

Bossner tried to deny that Kovalchuk worked for him, but the wiretaps refute that. Thus, Chickalo and Bliznyuk /leaders of the Society of Orthodox Patrons in Latin America/ recall that Kowalczuk sent a plane “with cognac from Bossner” as a gift for the police /this was the third unsuccessful attempt to carry the suitcases of cocaine loaded for the return trip/: “Kovalchuk gives me 2,000 dollars, he wants me to arrange a meeting with my superiors at the restaurant, we present him as a representative of the baron… And we have another matter, this and that, we drive embassy cars, we have to load without inspection. And speak out, and they will say they can or they can’t.”

And on November 14, 2017, Kowalchuk and Bliznyuk arranged a meeting with the leadership of the Superior Institute of Police Security of the Buenos Aires City Police, at which Kowalchuk welcomed the Argentine police chief on behalf of the “Bossner Fund.” And despite the fact that Kovalchuk, the con-man, constantly presents himself as various people /he appears as a strongman, diplomat, businessman/, Chikalo and Bliznyuk, working with Bossner, it is impossible that they did not know whether Kovalchuk represented Bossner or not, and that he took the plane with the cognac from somewhere.

There is another curious conversation in which the organization of Kovalchuk’s meeting with the governor of St. Petersburg, Georgy Poltavchenko, is discussed in order to obtain from him a written document about his readiness to accept Argentine police cadets and to conclude an agreement with the University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg. According to the investigation, this was necessary for the further shipments of cocaine under the pretext of “exchange of police delegations”. Bliznyuk insisted to Kovalchuk that Bossner should also be present at the meeting, “I would like Kostya to attend a separate meeting so that we can raise this topic with him. Have a separate meeting with Kostya, with you.” Bliznyuk himself remained in Russia to meet Bossner in St. Petersburg.

That it was Bossner-Loskutnikov behind the smuggling scheme emerges from many intercepted conversations
. Here is part of a conversation which makes it clear that it was Konstantin Bossner who initiated the cocaine smuggling scheme. The Insider has published the conversation in a translation from Spanish based on materials from the aforementioned indictment:

“Kovalchuk: – Hi, how are things? They installed Skype for me. They just haven’t brought it home to me yet.
Bliznyuk: – Super.
Kovalchuk: – I’ll probably take it tomorrow, I don’t think so today. Look, I want to ask you this and that. I will come next week.
-Bliznyuk: -And?
Kovalchuk: – Konstantin here asks me if you’ve been in contact with this…what’s his name…the Armenian family and another…remember, the ones who were on the yacht the other day in Pieter?
Bliznyuk: – And?
Kovalchuk: – What “and”? Do you have a relationship?
Bliznyuk: – Of course we do. But it depends for what purpose. We don’t communicate about drinking beer. For a specific job, yes.
Kovalchuk: – Ha-ha. The thing is, a plane will arrive. Constantine’s acquaintances will arrive by his own plane. As I understand it, I will also be at your place at that time. And he wants to send a crate of cognac and cigars to everyone.
Bliznyuk: – For whom?
Kovalchuk: – For these friends. About the Armenian, I only remember that he has an Armenian surname, about one more and one more – I don’t remember names, but I think it’s the head of security at the airport.
Bliznyuk: – OK. And what is expected of me?
Kovalchuk: – He will send them cognac, and they have to go and get it themselves, or we can go together and get it. From this private jet.
Bliznyuk: – understood, however, who is obliged to go to collect the cognac?
Kovalchuk: – I will say. A private jet departs.
Bliznyuk: – not a problem. Give me all the data to settle this earlier. Not like now “Tomorrow this plane arrives, and today these people must be told”.
Kovalchuk: – I understood. The probability of me being there is 90%. So in any case we will go together. But he wants to send them an email. I ask him why do we have Ivan for this? Send Ivan. And listen, can we arrange so that on the way back I send them the same wine?
Bliznyuk: – With this same plane?
Kovalchuk: – Yes.
Bliznyuk: – Listen, brother, you have to talk to them first. Will they be able to order what is sent to them to be collected. Do you understand? And then let Constantine send a letter in my name: “Ivan, I am sending this for so-and-so”, so that I can show it to these people.”

The “Armenian” in this conversation is the Argentine police officer Carlos Kevorkian. He, along with airport security police chief Griot Kovalchuk and Bossner, were taken to Russia on the pretext of exchanging experiences with the Russian Interior Ministry, where they rode on a yacht and had all sorts of fun. It was these policemen who were supposed to be responsible for the cocaine in the suitcases. The fact that Kovalchuk tried to resume this contact in the autumn of 2017 is probably explained by the fact that until that period their help was not needed, the contraband was sent with the diplomatic baggage without inspection with the support of the ambassador, but after the “quarrel” everything changed.
So the Kovalchuk-Bossner-Loskutnikov connection is obvious, but if Kovalchuk is extradited and arrested, no one cares about Bossner. He lives in Germany, makes political statements about the need to reunite the FRG with Russia, organizes presentations of books by pro-Kremlin political scientist Alexander Rahr, addresses the mayor of Vilnius on behalf of the club of scientists and entrepreneurs in Germany with a demand for the restoration of Soviet monuments, and makes other significant statements in the spirit of contemporary Kremlin policy.

Alongside the pro-Kremlin political scientists, Bossner also pushed pro-Kremlin cinema. One of his projects is the support for the Russian-language film festival in Marbel /where Bossner has a villa and a business under the guise of Marmoles Velerin, bringing him 6,000 euros profit a year/. According to Maria Eliseeva, a former jury member of the Marbel Russian Film Festival, Bossner had appropriated the festival for himself a few years earlier. He himself was eager, but claimed he would secure funding from the Russian Ministry of Culture. He drove around Marbel in two cars with security. In 2016, he convinced the jury not to give the prize to Vitaly Mansky, saying that the “girls”-the festival’s organizers-would not get the support of the Ministry of Culture, that Medinsky was cruelly spiteful towards Mansky, that there were not enough funds to run the festival, that his Berlin charity projects would punish him for his support of the Marbel festival if the prize went to Mansky. His charity supposedly helps children in Berlin with the help of the Russian embassy. “Don’t you want to help the children in Berlin?” was his line. Directly in the presence of the jury members, after three hours of wrangling, he rang the Russian Foreign Ministry in front of us. And his interlocutor stubbornly recommended “no prize for Mansky”. Failing to convince the jury, he went to brainwash the organizers. The same “girls”. And brainwashed them. Overall, the festival became pro-Putin.”

Bossner likes to boast about his connections and the fact that he regularly participates in the St Petersburg Economic Forum, but making contacts by throwing money around is not that difficult, just as it is not difficult to buy commissioned articles. And it would hardly protect him from arrest. It is likely that he was not arrested simply because the Russian authorities were trying to cover up the case as quickly as possible.

The Argentines have also limited themselves to a few main defendants. In the indictment of 21 May 2018. Investigating prosecutor Eduardo Taiano explains, Ali Babyanov and Kovalchuk were involved in the logistics – moving the suitcases – and Bliznyuk set in motion the connections, many of which came about thanks to the gifts, to make it harder to find the drugs, including with service-trained dogs. Bossner is not among the defendants, the indictment only mentions at the beginning a separate certificate signed by the Federal Tax Office of Argentina that “Bossner’s company is not registered in Argentina”. This company appears in the lawsuit after the embassy official Oleg Vorobyov assured in his testimony that “Kovalchuk, through Bossner’s company, received income and cooperated on the official visits, which, as suspected, were also a pretext for trafficking the drug.”

But why have the authorities in Argentina limited themselves to such a narrow list of defendants and not requested the extradition of this same Bossner? It is possible that the reason is not only in the political arrangements with Moscow, but also in the fact that without Russia’s assistance it is too complicated to investigate crimes committed by diplomats.

“Diplomatic mail investigations are extremely complex. Theoretically, if there is a suspicion of the transport of prohibited cargo, we are obliged to summon the embassy officials in the country concerned, who will order an investigation by the investigating authorities in their country. I once tried to open a diplomatic pouch in Nigeria, but it all went silent at the level of official protest notes,” a border police official in a European country told The Insider.

Translation from Russian BRRD

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