Aug. 26, 2005 — A jury convicted a Bulgarian boat captain Friday afternoon on charges he was smuggling hundreds of pounds of cocaine in international waters.
In U.S. District Court in St. Croix, Todor Yordanov Dragn was found guilty of possession on the high seas of cocaine with intent to distribute and was remanded to Golden Grove prison until his sentencing hearing. The jury cleared three other men arrested on Dragn's boat of the same charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll said.
Carroll would not speculate why the others were found innocent.
U.S. Coast Guard officers arrested Dragn in March 2004 after stopping the 47-foot boat he captained some 200 miles northwest of Grenada.
The Coast Guard seized more than 200 kilograms of cocaine aboard the vessel and towed it to St. Croix, the southernmost island in the U.S. Caribbean territory.
At the time of arrest, Dragn told officers he had recently bought the boat in Venezuela and was sailing back to Europe.
Dragn faces a maximum of life in prison. It was not clear when he would be sentenced.
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