Police liquidates drug cartel, income of which amounted to more than UAH 350 million per month
The police liquidated a drug cartel whose members manufactured and sold psychotropic substances through messenger channels.
The Minister of Interior Affairs Ihor Klymenko and the press service of the National Police announced this, the Ukrainian News agency reports.
Klymenko noted that law enforcement officers conducted more than 230 searches in 20 regions of the country.
"More than 60 detainees. 19 drug laboratories were liquidated, which produced almost a ton of amphetamine and Alpha-PVP every month. The income of criminals reached more than UAH 350 million per month," Klymenko wrote on his Telegram channel.
In turn, the National Police reported that the total income from 19 drug laboratories amounted to more than UAH 2 billion hryvnias in six months.
More than 1,500 police officers were involved in neutralizing six drug gangs, who conducted more than 230 searches during the two-stage special operation.
"67 members of criminal organizations were detained together with the organizers, and the international channel for the supply of precursors from abroad was blocked," the press service of the National Police reported.
It is noted that members of one of the criminal organizations established a smuggling channel for the supply of precursors from Poland to specially equipped warehouses.
There they were packaged and supplied to five drug cartels that manufactured Alpha-PVP and amphetamine in the Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk and Cherkasy Regions.
From there, it was distributed throughout the country with the help of clashes and private logistics companies through bot farms and Telegram channels.
Bot farms was used as a tool to anonymously manage a large network of accounts for drug sales and money laundering through crypto exchanges.
Despite a complex set of conspiracy measures, the operatives of the Department for Combating Narcotic Crime of the National Police established the persons and locations of the members of the drug network and the addresses of drug laboratories.
"According to the results of two stages of police special operations that took place in June and October of this year in the territory of 20 regions of Ukraine, more than 300 kg of the finished product and 1,000 liters of recreational mixtures of Alpha-PVP, more than 15 tons of precursors, more than 70 kg of amphetamine and 16 kg of mephedrone worth more than UAH 400 million at black market prices. In addition, laboratory equipment, weapons and cartridges for it, as well as 18 cars for transporting narcotic substances and seven million hryvnias in various currencies, were seized," the report said.
The National Police investigators gathered enough evidence and reported suspicion to 73 members of the drug syndicate for illegal production, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation, forwarding or sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues (Part 3 of Article 307 of the Criminal Code), organization or maintenance of places for the illegal use, production or manufacture of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues (Part 2 of Article 317 of the Criminal Code), committed by a criminal organization with a prior conspiracy, as well as for the creation, management and participation in a criminal organization (Part 1 and 2 of Article 255 of the Criminal Code), illegal production, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation or forwarding of precursors (Part 3 of Article 311 of the Criminal Code) and cultivation of hypnotic poppy or hemp (Part 2 of Article 310 of the Criminal Code).
Currently, the court is choosing preventive measures for the detainees.
Other members of the drug network are being established.
The persons face up to 12 years in prison.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in January the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Police neutralized a criminal organization that traded hard drugs in Ukraine and the European Union.