Criminal-investigation officers of the Kalininsky district police department in the Russian Interior Ministry’s Donetsk directorate stopped the activity of three local residents who police said sold marijuana in the Donetsk People’s Republic.[1] In late October officers detained a 61-year-old Donetsk resident.[1]
A search of his home found four packets and 15 paper wraps of plant material weighing 58 grams in total, which an examination identified as cannabis.[1] The man denied intending to sell drugs, but electronic scales and packaging material found in the search were used as evidence against him.[1] Investigators opened an attempted drug-sale case against him under part 3 of article 30 and point b of part 3 of article 228.1 of Russia’s Criminal Code.[1]
Further operational work led police to his supplier, a previously convicted resident of Shakhtarsk born in 1975.[1] Officers searched the accomplice’s flat and a storeroom in the stairwell, finding nine paper wraps of plant material weighing more than 119 grams.[1] The Shakhtarsk suspect told police he had bought the drug from an acquaintance for personal use.[1]
Police then identified a third member of the chain, a local resident born in 1980 who kept plant material in a plastic bag and eight glass jars of one to three litres on open ground near his home.[1] A chemical test confirmed that the jars held more than 1.1 kilograms of marijuana.[1] That suspect said he had found cannabis seeds by chance, grown the plants and prepared the drug solely for his own consumption.[1]
Police dismissed the suspects’ explanations, citing the large batch packed into single doses and the packaging material and high-precision scales found in the searches.[1] A district police investigator has opened cases against two of the accomplices under part 3 of article 30 and point g of part 4 of article 228.1 of the Criminal Code, which carry up to 20 years in prison.[1] The same account was published on the interior ministry’s own Telegram channel for the Donetsk People’s Republic.[2]
