Pubdate: 21 Aug 1998 Source: Athens News Agency Contact: http://www.hri.org/ MAJOR SHIPMENT OF COCAINE SEIZED ON BULK CARRIER Coastguard officers apparently acting on a tip-off boarded a Cypriot- flagged bulk carrier at a port in western Evia and found 248 kilos of cocaine yesterday morning. According to reports, the cocaine was stashed in pipes inside the engine room of the "Kleovoulos of Rhodes". Coastguard officials said the vessel, owned by the shipping firm "Celestial Maritime Corp," had sailed from Colombia for the port of Aliveri with a shipment of coal. Once unloading of the coal began, divers and drug squad officers boarded the 65,000 dwt vessel and found the cocaine. Eight Greek and 33 foreign merchant seamen were arrested and the vessel was impounded. Marijuana seized in western Greece Drug squad officers from Corfu and Igoumenitsa have arrested two Albanians and seized over 150 kilos of marijuana. According to press sources, the police two months ago received information that Albanian drug traffickers were using a speedboat to smuggle large quantities of marijuana into the country via the west coast of Corfu or southern Thesprotia. Late last night, police following a suspect arrested both him and another another whom he met in the dark near a beach in the community of Vatos. The two Albanians were found to be in possession of 153 kilos of marijuana wrapped in 17 packets. The two were named as Stara Bakiou, 27, a permanent resident of Corfu, and Thanasi Naso, a construction worker from Sarande. In an unrelated incident, five illegal immigrants from Albania, four of them minors, were arrested in a rural area of Florina prefecture in northern Greece after being found in possession of 1.3 kilos of hashish. - --- Checked-by: Rolf Ernst