Kaliningrad region’s drug-control police, with colleagues from the Moscow and Leningrad regions and Rosgvardia’s SOBR and OMON units, broke up an organised group selling drugs through an online shop, the regional interior ministry said.[1] Ten people were detained in three regions.[2] Police said the arrest operations ran simultaneously in the three regions.[2][3][4] The organiser and an accomplice were taken to Kaliningrad, where they gave confessions.[2][3][4]
The organiser lived in Leningrad region and coordinated the shop, while his brother in Sovetsk administered the website.[2][3] An accomplice from the Moscow region bought wholesale batches, and another member, from Nemansky district, grew cannabis and made marijuana from it.[2][3] Couriers placed the finished goods in hiding places, known in Russia as zakladki, for contactless sales.[2][3] Police say the group sold marijuana, hashish, mephedrone, alpha-PVP, methadone and LSD in the Kaliningrad and Moscow regions.[2][4]
The shop handled about 10,000 drug sales, according to preliminary police figures.[2] Searches of the detainees’ homes found three cannabis bushes, 21 stashes containing hashish, and cannabis.[2][3] Officers also found caches holding packages of amphetamine and hashish.[2][3] Criminal cases were opened under article 228.1 of Russia’s Criminal Code, which covers drug trafficking.[2][3]
The cases also include an attempted offence under part 3 of article 30, and the article 228.1 charges specify production, sale or sending of drugs by a group acting by prior conspiracy, including in a significant amount.[3]
The Rosgvardia units were SOBR Viking and OMON Grad of the directorate for the Kaliningrad region.[4]
