Cocaine Traffickers Operating In Russia Were Found To Have Ties To Putin's Inner Circle
3- 3.07.2026, 17:49
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The shipment was headed for St. Petersburg.
The publication “Sistema” has uncovered links between a major banana carrier—on whose flights cocaine has been found on multiple occasions—and the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It turned out that three anti-drug operations carried out by the security services in 2022, 2025, and 2026, were linked to a single group of companies, and the cargo was headed to St. Petersburg, which is considered one of the largest transshipment hubs for cocaine from Latin America, writes The Moscow Times.
In August 2025, at the seaport of St. Petersburg, Russian law enforcement officials seized more than 1.5 metric tons of cocaine worth over 20 billion rubles from the container ship Cool Emerald, which had arrived from Ecuador carrying a shipment of bananas. In 2026, Estonian law enforcement detained the container ship Baltic Spirit, which was traveling the same route to St. Petersburg, on suspicion of drug trafficking. In 2022, as part of Operation “Ecuadorian Wind,” Russian law enforcement officials discovered 50 kg of cocaine in a container belonging to the company “Baltic Shipping.”
All three cases were linked to Cool Carriers, a major operator transporting bananas from Latin America. According to “Sistema,” a well-established logistics corridor between Ecuador and St. Petersburg has been established along this route, and drugs are regularly found in its containers. Cool Carriers specializes in transporting fruit from Ecuador, which makes the company an “indirect victim of drug trafficking,” wrote the industry publication Banana Export. Drug trafficking is an industrial-scale problem, stated Glenn Selling , executive director of Cool Carriers , in late 2025. Selling shifted the blame onto partners, port authorities, and customs officials. For its part, Cool Carriers “is doing everything it can [to prevent smuggling],” Selling asserted.
In Russia, the company’s fruit transshipment takes place through the “MGS-Terminal” at the Port of St. Petersburg. Two of the three seats on the board of directors of “MGS-Terminal” were held, as of the end of 2025, by Vladimir Borisenko, the Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation in South Africa, and Mikhail Ganyushin, who are co-owners of the terminal—they own one-third of the company. Vladimir Burlev , CEO of “MGS-Terminal” , stated that nearly all banana imports into Russia pass through the terminal. The main client is “Baltic Shipping,” which accounts for about two-thirds of the shipments. “Baltic Shipping” is also linked to Ganyushin and Borisenko. Ganyushin has been working in maritime logistics since the 1990s. In 2026, his company denied reports in the Ukrainian media claiming that he was linked to the inner circle of businessman Arkady Rotenberg.
Borisenko was one of the founders of the association of owners of the Happy Järvi cottage community near St. Petersburg. Among the founders was also Oleg Rudnov, a St. Petersburg media mogul considered close to Yuri Kovalchuk. Borisenko is also a member of the “Russian League of Honorary Consular Officials.” The club includes other figures close to Putin, including the president’s aide Sergey Fursenko (Consul of Bangladesh), as well as the league’s co-founder, Honorary Consul of the Seychelles Viktor Khmarin—a classmate of Vladimir Putin.
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