In the Guantanamo operation, Colombian armed groups and drug cartels gave great help to the Gorky Brotherhood, and this friendship made Seryosha have to show something.
So Seryosha decided to give Escobar and his Mexican partners a big gift to help them expand the drug trade to the United States.
Seryosha presented nothing but three decommissioned Soviet conventional submarines and two Soviet-made tunnel boring shields.
Seryosha sent the submarine mainly to make it easier for Escobar to transport cocaine to the United States.
The EPBMs were used to help Medellín Group's Mexican partners open and dig secret tunnels along the U.S.
-Mexico border.
These three submarines are antiques from decades ago, and after they were decommissioned, they were forgotten in military ports and used as combat supplies, training ships or target ships for military exercises.
Seryosha knew that such a thing was no longer of much use for the USSR Ministry of Defense.
So after communicating with the Ministry of Defense, he spent some money to buy three.
After that, it was pulled to the dock in Ukraine to be refurbished, and the power and weapon systems were replaced, although the three submarines were produced for a long time, but it was not difficult to rest, and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation urged it tightly but gave enough money.
So Ukrainian shipbuilders gave up almost all work on the modification of these three conventional submarines, so it took only a little more than a month of events to complete the entire work.
On the Medellín side, Escobar was naturally very excited when they learned of Nikolai's gift, and they selected some reliable drug dealers with some cultural foundation to come to the Soviet Union to learn the basic skills of submarine piloting at the Soviet Naval Academy under a false identity.
In order to ensure that after the delivery of these three submarines in the future, the Medellín Group can play their full role.
Although the transport capacity of the three submarines is not large, if they are transporting cocaine that is higher than the price of gold, then the value of these submarines is a different matter.
It is important to know that after the operation and operation of the Colombian drug cartel over the years, the cocaine industry has formed a complete industrial trade chain.
And in the entire trade chain, because of the geographical advantage, the Colombians took the most huge profits in it.
Cocaine is a drug extracted from nature, and its basic ingredient is a plant called coca.
This plant is one of the main crops in several countries on the South American continent, and in the eyes of the Indians, the coca leaf is probably similar to the betel nut.
In addition, coca is also one of the ingredients in Coca-Cola's mysterious formula.
Although governments in Latin America have outlawed the cultivation and sale of coca, for the people of these countries, coca is the only livelihood they depend on.
Although Colombian drug cartels almost monopolize most of the profits from the cocaine trade, Colombia ranks third in terms of the scale of coca cultivation, followed by Bolivia and Peru.
Due to the climatic and natural conditions in Bolivia, agricultural production is extremely difficult.
Traditional, intensive crops will not yield well anywhere.
In Bolivia, the gap between rich and poor is so great that coca is the only subsistence crop for poor farmers, and in Bolivia coca leaves are sold openly in rural and urban markets like tobacco, and a good bundle of coca leaves costs about twenty dollars, and the quantity is preferred.
But when these coca leaves are processed into cocaine, they can sell for $2,000 per kilogram.
If this kilogram of cocaine can be purchased for at least $6,000 to be shipped to Medellin, and to Mexico it is $10,000 a kilogram, and the local wholesale price in the United States is $30,000, and if it is disassembled into small packages for retail, the same kilogram of cocaine can be sold for more than $100,000.
Among them, how to safely transport cheap Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine to the United States has been a major problem that has plagued Colombians in the drug trade.
Now with submarines, it seems that there is an immediate solution to this dilemma.
Soviet submarines were old, but they could fool the Mexican and American coast guards.
The covert excavation of tunnels along the U.S.
-Mexico border by EPBs has greatly increased the trade volume of the Medellín Group.
It is expected that the small help provided by Seryosha will greatly increase the difficulty of the DEA's inspections, and the income of the Medellín group, the Cali group, and the guerrillas will also be greatly increased.
If Seryoshasha's clients can make more money, then the business of the Gorky Brotherhood will naturally rise.
Seryosha did not directly intervene in the submarine matter, but was single-handedly handled by Valentin, a newly promoted high-ranking cadre of the Gorky Brotherhood.
In order to facilitate Valentin's activities in the Soviet Union, Seryosha arranged for Valentin a nominal position in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Specialized in helping the Ministry of Defense to engage in the export of conventional weapons and special equipment for military and civilian use.
It can be regarded as semi-legalizing Valentin's arms business in the Soviet Union.
Seryosha exported these weapons not as munitions, but as ordinary civilian goods.
Because many countries in the world, including some countries in Europe, do not prohibit ordinary people from owning guns, Valentin's arms business can be used as a cover.
Through the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, Valentin can legally sell Soviet-made pistols, shotguns, and some sniper rifles and assault rifles to arms retailers in European countries, but it is still easy to carry some smuggled goods when exporting.
Although from a global perspective, the market for civilian gun consumption is not large.
However, the quality of the Soviet Union's firearms is still well-known, and its international competitiveness is several levels better than that of household appliances, automobiles, and other industrial products produced in the Soviet Union.
Valentin's arms business finally took on a veneer of legitimacy, and he could now openly visit Soviet military-industrial enterprises and warehouses of war supplies to select the goods he needed.
This made Valentin's trade costs instantly reduced a lot, and finally made some achievements Valentin began to continue recruiting for the development of his business, and he contacted some old colleagues and old friends working in the KGB system through various connections and channels, and pulled them into his newly established company.
Because Valentin knew that only those who had worked in the KGB were the most suitable for this industry. t1706231537: