Crackdown on Narcos Reveals Alleged Lithuanian Trafficking Group

The small Baltic nation of Lithuania isn’t usually thought of as a hub of cocaine trafficking.

But in December, the U.S. government announced it was taking “sweeping action” against the global drug trade by imposing sanctions on five Lithuanians they accused of coordinating a massive drug smuggling ring that spanned three continents.

What exactly were these Lithuanians doing?

The U.S. sanctions notice doesn’t go into detail, but journalists at OCCRP and its Lithuanian partner, Siena.lt, had already been looking into the same men, after learning that authorities in both Australia and Colombia suspected them of coordinating drug shipments.

One of them, Rokas Karpis, is well-known in Lithuania from a previous foray into crime, when he was arrested in New Zealand for drug smuggling, then dramatically fled the country in 2001 using a false identity while out on bail.

Karpis, who at the time of his arrest was known as Rokas Karpavičius, is the son of a prominent Lithuanian businessman. He remained free for a decade, but was recaptured in Latvia in 2011 and extradited to New Zealand. During his trial, local media dubbed him the “global kingpin” of a drug trafficking and money laundering syndicate.

He was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, but paroled in 2016 and deported back to Lithuania. In recent years he has kept a low profile, claiming to have reinvented himself as a currency trader. He also changed his name to Rokas Karpis.

But last year, OCCRP journalists learned that law enforcement suspected the “global kingpin” might have continued trafficking drugs even after his release from prison.

A memo found within the NarcoFiles, a leak of emails from the Colombian prosecutor’s office, alleged that a group co-led by Karpis had been behind a major 2017 cocaine seizure on a sailboat called the Afalina.

The memo, compiled by Colombian investigators but largely based on police intelligence from Australia, came from an international law enforcement collaboration involving six countries, codenamed Operation Edge-Dale, which was set up after the Afalina’s seizure. It describes a “Lithuanian drug trafficking organization” which it alleged was co-headed by Karpis.

The memo also claimed that Karpis was working with another Lithuanian, Virginijus Labutis, to run the smuggling operation. However, neither man was charged in connection with the Afalina seizure, and these suspicions never saw the light of day.

Unlike Karpis, Labutis is not widely known in Lithuania. But he was arrested in September in Colombia and extradited back to his home country after an Interpol warrant was requested by Lithuania on allegations of cocaine trafficking.

Three months later, the U.S. sanctioned him, alongside Karpis, for allegedly coordinating international drug shipments and working with major organized crime groups, including Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.

Karpis’ lawyer declined to comment, while Labutis is in detention in Lithuania and unavailable for comment. Karpis’s current whereabouts are unknown, although the U.S. sanctions notice said he was based in Spain. The new revelations about Karpis and Labutis raise the possibility that Lithuanians might be taking on a new, more active role in international drug trafficking, according to Mindaugas Lankauskas, a Lithuanian criminologist from Vilnius University.

“Lithuanians usually occupy logistical positions. That means they can move [cocaine] shipments, they might be buying some quantities, but they aren’t usually at the top of the chain,” Lankauskas said.

The December sanctions showed that Karpis’s and Labutis’ alleged operations were “serious enough” for the U.S. to act, he added.

Lithuanian police confirmed their participation in Operation Edge-Dale, and echoed Lankauskas’s analysis.

“The [U.S.] sanctions applied to these individuals show the scale of their crimes and the danger they pose,” said the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau in a statement to Siena.

The chief of the bureau, Arūnas Maskoliūnas, told reporters that Karpis was “known” to law enforcement, but said he could not comment on early stage investigations.