MOSCOW, March 13 – RAPSI, Ingrid Burke. Marcel Acevedo Sarmiento, alleged accomplice to Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko whose 20-year drug trafficking sentence by an American court in 2011 bolstered a diplomatic row between Russia and America, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in a US federal court Tuesday for conspiracy to import cocaine to the US.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Bharara viewed the sentence as the outcome of a successful international crime-fighting partnership between the US and Liberia, announcing: “With today’s sentencing of Marcel Acevedo Sarmiento for his role in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy, we continue to bear the fruits of our unprecedented partnership with the Government of Liberia. International cooperation is essential to our efforts to stamp out the drug trade, and there can be no better example of the results that can be achieved when we work together than this case.”

Sarmiento’s arrest and prosecution were part of “Operation Relentless,” an undercover operation carried out jointly by the American and Liberian governments to combat the increased use over the past decade of the West African coast as a drug trafficking hub.

According to the US Attorney’s statement, “Through a combination of privately owned aircraft and maritime vessels, these organizations, predominantly based in Colombia and Venezuela, have transported hundreds of tons of cocaine, worth billions of dollars, to West African countries including Liberia.”

Acavedo was caught up in a conspiracy to fly 4,000 kilograms of cocaine, worth upwards of $100 million to Monrovia, Liberia. The 48-year-old Colombian supplier formerly had the capacity to transport enormous quantities of cocaine to West Africa for distribution to Europe and beyond.

He was caught after detailing various shipments during the course of recorded telephone conversations with an undercover source working for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in May 2010. Among those shipments, one was said to be protected by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), an organization classified by US authorities as “an international terrorist group dedicated to the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Government of Colombia.” Another was set to be shipped into New York.

Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot, was arrested in Liberia in 2010 as part of the same Operation Relentless. He was found guilty by jury trial in April 2011 of conspiracy to import cocaine into the US and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

On the heels of his sentencing, Bharara had announced, “Konstantin Yaroshenko agreed to play a vital role in a vast, international drug conspiracy that attempted to transform the country of Liberia into a transshipment hub for ton quantities of cocaine. But unbeknownst to his coconspirators, the same Liberian officials they attempted to bribe were working in lockstep with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration to take him and his co-conspirators down. Today's sentence is the latest manifestation of those historic efforts."

Yaroshenko’s sentencing was followed later the same year with the sentencing of Viktor Bout, whose story gained popular notoriety through the success of the Hollywood blockbuster Lord of War, a story that is said to be loosely based on Bout's life - although a highly sensationalized version, if that.

After having been arrested as part of a DEA sting operation in Thailand, Bout was convicted in November 2011 of conspiracy to murder US nationals, including military officers and employees, and to sell weapons worth millions of dollars, including hundreds of portable surface-to-air missiles and over 20,000 AK-47s, to FARC.

The arrest and prosecution of both men have proven damaging to diplomatic ties between Russia and the US. In May Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vowed to take all possible legal steps to ensure the repatriation of Bout and Yaroshenko.