Colombia detains two Russians suspected by the US of smuggling cocaine on sailboats

Simultaneous arrests in two cities

Two Russian citizens have been detained in Colombia on suspicion by US authorities of organizing an international cocaine smuggling route. As reported by the Colombian publication El Universal, citing the country's Attorney General's Office, the case concerns Oleg Khazov and Vitaly Zhikarev, whom Washington intends to seek the extradition of. The operation was carried out simultaneously in two cities: Khazov was detained at a pier in Cartagena, and Zhikarev in the El Poblado district of Medellín. The capture involved investigators from the Colombian prosecutor's office with support from the country's Navy and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The investigation's version: division of roles and sailboat hiding compartments

According to materials from the federal court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the detainees were part of an international group uniting citizens of Colombia and European countries, which operated on the country's Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Urabá area. The investigation believes the roles were divided: according to the American side's version, Khazov coordinated drug trafficking logistics, while Zhikarev was involved in acquiring and refitting sailing vessels and recruiting crews for international voyages. The scheme, it is claimed, began far from the coast: batches of cocaine were delivered from Bogotá and Medellín to the Caribbean Sea, hidden in specially equipped compartments of the sailboats, and sent to foreign destinations in the US and Europe. The total volume of the group's shipments, according to the investigation's estimate, could have amounted to tons.

The Louisiana episode and further procedure

One episode of the investigation was the seizure of 77 kilograms of cocaine in the US state of Louisiana: the drugs were discovered on May 25, 2025, in the city of Metairie. US law enforcement believes both detainees may have been involved in shipping this batch. The men are currently in the custody of the Colombian prosecutor's office: local authorities will notify the American side of the detention through diplomatic channels, after which the US will have to formally file an extradition request. The case files include charges related to drug trafficking and participation in a criminal conspiracy.

Context: other cases involving Russians

Life.ru, in the same article, recalls other cases connected to the US. Earlier, Russian citizen Anton Rakov was detained in Louisiana, in whose truck, according to the publication, more than 358 kilograms of methamphetamine were found — a batch described as one of the largest in the region's history. A separate story involving maritime shipments is connected to Russian national Oksana Zubareva, who was accused of organizing the smuggling of 8.7 tons of cocaine on the vessel ESER, detained off the coast of Cape Verde in January 2019: the ship took on the drugs off the coast of Venezuela, but after one of the sailors died, it entered a port where it was detained. According to Life.ru, almost nine tons of the seized cocaine were destroyed back in early 2019, three days after the vessel's detention, while legal proceedings against the alleged organizer continued. These mentions are the publication's retrospective context, not part of the new case of the arrests in Colombia.