Russian officials, taken to Alaska for meeting Donald Trump with a plane became famous in a cocaine traffic scandal
Aircraft in flight. Photo credit: Mike Campbell / Nurphoto / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
Russian President Vladimir Putin goes to Alaska to meet his American counterpart, Donald Trump, and the Russian language service The Moscow Times claims that part of the delegation sent to Moscow has traveled to the US with an aircraft that became known to the general public in an older case of Cocaine.
On Thursday morning, an IL-96 plane of the special flight detachment “Russia” took off from Moscow to Alaska. According to the FlightRadar24 monitoring source, the aircraft with the RA-96023 aircraft took off from Vnukovo airport to Anchorage, USA, where a meeting between the United States and Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, is scheduled to discuss the possible conclusion of the Ukraine war.
According to Tass, on board the aircraft you may have been one of the groups pregnant with the visit.
The Russian delegation includes even the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, presidential counselor Yuri Usakov, Defense Minister, Andrei Belousov, Minister of Finance, Anton Siluanov, and special emissary Kirill Dmitriev.
The aircraft appeared in a cocaine traffic folder
The RA-96023 plane became known seven years ago, when almost 400 kilograms of cocaine were confiscated from the buildings of the Russian Embassy at Buenos Aires. The Argentine gendarmerie then published a photo of the aircraft accused of delivering cocaine to Russia. An investigation showed that the diplomatic post of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was used for this.
In 2021, a court in Moscow found four defendants in the “Cocaine File”: Ali Abyanov, Vladimir Kalmykov, Andrei Kovalchuk and Ishtimir Khudzhamov.
According to investigators, in 2016, the businessman Kovalciuk purchased the drug in Argentina, and then the substance was packaged in suitcases and hidden in a technical room at the School of Russia at Buenos Aires. Ali Abyanov, who worked as a caretaker at the embassy at that time, wrapped his values in special paper and put them on wax seals, as is done with diplomatic correspondence.
When the contract was concluded, Abyanov returned to Moscow, but his replacement discovered the suspicious load. The Embassy Security Service opened the suitcases and found cocaine.
The Argentine police confiscated the drug and destroyed. Instead, he put flour bag in suitcases, sealed them and sent them to Moscow. On December 12, 2017, Abyanov and businessmen Vladimir Kalmykov and Iștimir Khudzhamov were detained in the Russian capital when they were trying to possess the parcels from Argentina. Kovalchuk was detained in Germany and extradited to Russia
None of the defendants acknowledged their guilt. They claimed that they were involved in legitimate businesses and that the suitcases initially contained coffee, cigars and semiprecious stones, saying that I do not know how cocaine came there instead of goods.
