Cops bust intl coke-trafficking ring

(ANSA) - Brindisi, March 31 - The finance guard on Tuesday arrested four men and are seeking three more on suspicion of forming an international drug trafficking ring that brought cocaine from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
    The seven arrested in the southern Puglia and Calabria regions face charges of criminal association with intent to acquire, import, transport, possess, distribute and sell drugs.
    Police have detained Francesco and Vittorio Pezzuto, aged 71 and 48, from the town of Squinzano in Puglia, as well as Giuseppe Novello, 34, and Stefano Condina, 59, from Calabria.
    Squinzano-based brothers Antonio and Patrizio Pellegrino and one Colombian national have escaped arrest and are being sought by police.
    The investigation kicked off in 2013 when the alleged traffickers offered a finance guard who was posted to Brindisi port 100,000 euros to look the other way while the drugs were moved in.
    He reported the attempted bribery instead.
    The organization allegedly brought shipments of 70-100 kilos of cocaine - worth about four million euros each - into Genoa and Gioia Tauro ports disguised in canned asparagus and banana shipments.