The fog clung heavily to the St. Petersburg quays, smelling of brine, wet hemp, and the desperation of the waterfront. It was here, amidst the clatter of iron cranes and the shouts of dock-wallopers, that the agents of the secret police made their strike. In the depths of the 'Petrolesport' terminal, a cargo of frozen tuna arrived, looking for all the world like an honest shipment of fish for the city's larders.

But the inspectors, with the keen eyes of seasoned detectives, sensed something amiss. They sliced through the frozen carcasses of the tuna, and there, hidden within the cold flesh, they discovered a fortune in misery: five hundred kilograms of pure cocaine, smuggled from the distant shores of Latin America.

One Russian subject, a man who thought himself far cleverer than the law, was hauled away in irons. He had dreamt of a grand 'malina'—a sanctuary of vice and gold—but his luck had run dry. The officers did not stop at the drugs. They ransacked his quarters and found a hoard that would make a banker blush: thirteen gold wrist-watches of exquisite craft, worth over a million dollars, and five motor-carriages of the most opulent sort, valued at no less than 130 million roubles. Even his secret coffers—digital purses of a modern, cryptic sort—were seized, containing some 613 thousand dollars in cold, hard currency.

'Tis a recurring tragedy in this port city. Only last summer, the authorities gathered five hundred and thirty kilograms of the same white powder, valued at a billion roubles, and committed it to the flames at a special pyre. The law has spoken, the sentences are passed, and the smugglers find themselves staring at the grey walls of a cell rather than the glitter of their stolen gold.