The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and law enforcement officers of the Republic of Poland liquidated a transnational channel for smuggling precursors to Ukraine for the manufacture and sale of heavy psychotropic drugs. This is stated in the SSU report.
As a result of the special operation, 10 members of an international drug group were detained in both countries, who were transporting wholesale consignments of pseudoephedrine to Zaporizhzhia. The monthly "profit" of the criminals exceeded USD 100,000.
According to law enforcement officers, to secretly import the precursor into Ukraine, the criminals hid it in containers with baby food and animal feed. Then they delivered disguised "parcels" to their accomplices in Ukraine via regular buses or postal services. The average weight of the "transfer" was 5 kg - this is 50,000 pills of prohibited drugs, which include the precursor - pseudoephedrine.
After receiving the contraband, the criminals sold part of the "goods" through a network of dealers. They also left the precursors in a drug laboratory in the Dnipropetrovsk Region, where they produced amphetamine.
The SSU officers, together with Polish law enforcement officers, documented the functioning of the drug trafficking, identified all its participants and simultaneously detained them during a special operation. Six criminals were detained in the EU, another 4, together with the organizer of the group, in Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Rih.
As the investigation showed, the organizers of the drug trafficking were two brothers from Zaporizhzhia. One of them left for the EU in early 2022, where he formed a foreign "wing" of the group, which was responsible for smuggling precursors into Ukraine.
At the same time, his brother remained in Zaporizhzhia to coordinate the "import" of prohibited substances and their sale in different regions of Ukraine.
During searches of the perpetrators' locations in Ukraine and the EU, precursors prepared for sale and psychotropic substances produced from them, as well as equipment for the synthesis of narcotic substances, were discovered.
Currently, the SSU investigators have informed the detainees in Ukraine of suspicion under four articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
- Part 3 of Article 305 (smuggling of precursors);
- Part 3 of Article 307 (illegal manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation, shipment or sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues);
- Part 3 of Article 311 (illegal manufacture, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation or shipment of precursors);
- Part 2 of Article 317 (organization or maintenance of places for the illegal use, production or manufacture of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues).
The perpetrators are in custody. They face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property. The issue of declaring them additional suspicion for creating and participating in a criminal organization is also being resolved.
The suspects detained abroad have been brought to justice in accordance with the legislation of the EU countries.
As Ukrainian News Agency reported, earlier, the counterintelligence of the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Police neutralized the agent network of the special services of the aggressor country, the russian federation, which was coordinating russian airstrikes on the eastern, southern and western regions of Ukraine.
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