RUSSIA-COLOMBIA COCAINE LINK PROBED

SAN DIEGO, California -- U.S. investigators Tuesday were looking into
the chance that a record haul of cocaine intercepted by the Coast
Guard off Mexico was bound for Europe rather than the United States.

The Coast Guard seized a fishing trawler flying the flag of Belize
this month after some 13 tons of cocaine worth an estimated $500
million was found hidden in a fuel tank.

In a somewhat surprising twist, a crew of 10 Russians and Ukrainians,
rather than Latin Americans, was found aboard the Svesda Maru. The
nationality of the sailors, who spoke both Russian and Spanish, led to
suspicions that the cocaine was bound for the European drug market as
part of an arrangement between Russian organized crime gangs and
Colombian cocaine traffickers, the San Diego Union-Tribune said Tuesday.

The newspaper said that, according to unnamed U.S. officials, Russian
mobsters and Colombian traffickers have joined forces in an
arrangement that swaps cocaine for a wide variety of Soviet-bloc
weapons and aircraft.

The Coast Guard boarded the Svesda Maru on May 3 off Mexico's Pacific
Coast, north of the Panama Canal, which would indicate the vessel was
headed for a North American port unless it intended to sail all the
way to Russia's Pacific coast.

Mexican media has said that the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix gang
probably would have had to sanction the Svesda Maru's final voyage, if
its destination was Mexico or California.