“The court rules that all the accused are guilty of the crimes they were charged with and that they participated in a criminal group that transported narcotic drugs from Colombia to Lithuania in a coal shipment,” Judge Olegas Sibkovas of the Kaunas Regional Court said.
Officials found 70 kilograms of cocaine in the 250-ton coal shipment. According to the case file, the job of the three convicted men was to remove the drugs from the coal cargo.
Vaidotas Matulaitis and Kęstutis Zienka were given prison sentences of eight years and eight years and a half, respectively. Diego Pena Murillo, the Colombian, was sentenced to nine years in jail.
The judgment can be appealed.
As a result of an operation that lasted for several years, police officers in 2015 found around 70 kilograms of cocaine mixed into coal delivered from Colombia. It was one of the biggest consignments of cocaine ever seized in Lithuania.
Police later arrested one more suspect. A pre-trial investigation regarding him is still ongoing.