The police dismantled a drug cartel whose members manufactured and sold psychotropic drugs via messengers. The offenders' income reached more than UAH 350 million per month.
This was announced by the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko and the National Police press service.
In total, more than 230 searches were conducted in 20 Regions of the country.
According to the National Police, the total income from 19 drug labs amounted to more than UAH 2 billion over six months.
More than 1,500 police officers were involved in the dismantling of six drug gangs, who conducted more than 230 searches in twenty Regions of Ukraine during a two-stage special operation. The police detained 67 members of the criminal organisations together with their organisers and blocked an international channel for the supply of precursors from abroad.
Members of one of the criminal organisations set up a smuggling channel for the supply of precursors from Poland to specially equipped warehouses. There, they packaged and delivered the precursors to five drug cartels that produced Alpha-PVP and amphetamine in Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolayiv, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk and Cherkasy Regions. From there, it was distributed throughout the country using masterclasses and private logistics companies through bot farms and telegram channels.
The bot farms were used as a tool for anonymously managing a large network of accounts for drug trafficking and money laundering through crypto exchanges. This allowed them to register numerous accounts in messengers, payment systems and crypto exchanges, maintaining anonymity and obfuscating the traces of financial transactions.
As a result of two phases of police special operations conducted in June and October this year in 20 Regions of Ukraine, more than 300 kg of finished product and 1,000 litres of recreational mixtures of Alpha-PVP, more than 15 tonnes of precursors, more than 70 kg of amphetamine and 16 kg of mephedrone worth more than UAH 400 million at black market prices were seized. In addition, laboratory equipment, weapons and ammunition, as well as 18 vehicles for transporting drugs and seven million hryvnyas in various currencies were seized.
Investigators gathered sufficient evidence and served 73 members of the drug syndicate with a notice of suspicion:
- for illegal production, manufacture, purchase, storage, transportation, shipment or sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues (Part 3 of Article 307 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine),
- organising or maintaining 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 of Ukraine) committed by a criminal organisation by prior conspiracy (part 4 of Article 28 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine),
- creation, management and participation in a criminal organisation (Article 255(1) and (2) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine),
- illegal production, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation or shipment of precursors (Article 311(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)
- sowing or cultivation of sleeping poppies or cannabis (part 2 of Article 310 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The court is currently choosing a measure of restraint for the detainees. Other members of the drug network are being identified. The defendants face up to twelve years in prison.