Alleged drug-smuggling sailor Janis Zegelis was “under threat from a Russian mobster” when he brought cocaine to Bermuda and should be acquitted, his lawyer argued.However, the prosecutor said Mr Zegelis knew exactly what he was doing and “no doubt there would have been Champagne in Riga, Latvia,” if he’d made it to his home country with the drugs.Father-of-three Mr Zegelis is charged with importing and possessing $48 million of cocaine. The drugs were found along with a gun and 192 bullets when bad weather forced him to stop in Bermuda for emergency repairs to his 38-foot yacht, the Arturs.Prosecutor Rory Field and defence lawyer Mark Pettingill delivered their closing speeches in the case yesterday.According to Mr Field, the 29-year-old defendant was sailing from Trinidad to Latvia with the drugs in order to earn money for his family in the impoverished Eastern European country.However, Mr Zegelis told the jury on Tuesday that he had no idea about the drugs until he discovered them hidden in a storage cupboard three days into the voyage.He said he believed the cocaine was hidden by an unnamed Russian man who paid him to take the yacht to Latvia.When he discovered the drugs along with a gun, Mr Zegelis said he was shocked, and too scared to dump them in the sea because the Russian threatened to kill him and his family.He described the man as having connections across the Caribbean where he ran yacht charter businesses, and said he had no doubt that the death threat was serious.Mr Field poured scorn on that version of events yesterday, suggesting the Russian man had been invented by the defendant.Noting how Mr Zegelis spoke during his evidence about economic problems facing his family and country, Mr Field suggested he did the drug delivery to earn cash for “people with no money”.Mr Zegelis allegedly told a policeman escorting him to Hamilton Police Station after his arrest last August 1 that he was to be paid $2 million to deliver the drugs.“It’s not as if Latvia is the most crime-free place in the whole world and it’s not as if people who work as sailors don’t know about smuggling,” observed Mr Field.Mr Field said e-mails between Mr Zegelis and his mother, Daina Zegele, 52, who lived in the Dominican Republic, show she was also involved in the smuggling plot.Mr Zegelis refused to answer Mr Field’s questions on Tuesday about where his mother is currently located and who the Russian man is.However, urging the jury to clear Mr Zegelis’s name, defence lawyer Mark Pettingill described him as the “patsy” or fall guy for the Russian mastermind.“The guys at the top don’t run ‘Mafia Incorporated’. They run yacht charter businesses. They want to appear as legitimate as possible,” argued Mr Pettingill.“You use things and you use people as best you can. You take advantage of a situation as best you can.“There are a lot of ingenious ways to do it and if you can keep your knowledge down as much as possible with one of your patsies you do that. That is organised crime.”The defence lawyer said Mr Zegelis had no choice but to continue his journey with the drugs once he discovered them.“He could have thrown it over the side and gone to the Russians and said ‘oh, sorry, I lost your $48 million in a storm’. But that’s not the real world,” he said.Mr Pettingill told the jury that after Mr Zegelis stumbled across them: “He was in a whirlwind of panic and concern and trying to play it cool and get out of Dodge.”The jury is likely to deliver verdicts in the case today.