Bulgarian boat captain convicted of cocaine smuggling in USVI
by Melody Wiggins
Caribbean Net News Correspondent
Monday, August 29, 2005
ST. CROIX, USVI: A St. Croix jury convicted
a Bulgarian boat captain on Friday on charges he was smuggling cocaine in
international waters.
Todor Yordanov Dragn, captain of the
sailboat called the Sunrise, had his vessel boarded by the Coast Guard 90
miles north of Venezuela on March 17. The boat was found to have 458 pounds of
cocaine wrapped up and hidden in compartments.
The Coast Guard towed the boat to St. Croix,
which is the closest island governed under the U.S. flag.
Vasil Ivanov, Desislave Kaladzhieva and Georgi Kostov were also passengers on
the sailboat. However, the jury did not find sufficient evidence to link them
to the drugs. Dragn told the Coast Guard he
bought the sailboat in Venezuela and was sailing it back to Europe. He faces a
maximum sentence of life in prison. The U.S. District Court in St. Croix will
set sentencing at a later date.
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