A multiple offender from Latvia and a Russian gangster, formerly a resident of Latvia, were arrested in Ecuador last week along with another citizen of Russia and three Ecuador citizens on the charges of large-scale drug smuggling, informs LETA.
The six were detained by Ecuador Police at Guayaquil Port after a ship sailing under the Spanish flag, that was taking 21 tons of molasses to Barcelona, was arrested. Experts later determined that molasses contained 17 tons of cocaine that had been mixed with the molasses.Guayaquil police inform that it is one of the largest drug consignment to be seized in Guayaquil. The Latvian police have not yet commented.One of the detainees is Vladimirs Mitrevics, alias Podsolnukh (sunflower), a resident of Latvia, and Russian citizen Maxim Tarnopolsky who was convicted in Latvia of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison, after his "Mercedes-Benz G320" veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided with another three cars, killing three and injuring another three people.
In 2001, Tarnopolskis was sentenced to ten years in prison, but he escaped from Vecumnieki Prison in 2005.Mitrevics was charged and tried several times for various crimes, in 2003 he was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for six months, for unlawful possession of narcotic substances.