Kherson police exposed a group involved in drug trafficking in the oblast and beyond, saying two Kherson residents grew and collected cannabis and passed it to accomplices for sale in the city and outside it, including a suspect in Odesa.[1] A 49-year-old man and a 41-year-old woman from the regional centre grew hemp on dacha plots of a gardening society in Kherson district, then harvested it and prepared it for sale.[1] A 62-year-old Kherson man and another city resident sold the cannabis, while police identified a 41-year-old Odesa woman who periodically ordered drugs from the organizers for further illegal sale.[1] Police named the four suspects as two Kherson men aged 49 and 62, a 41-year-old Kherson woman and a 41-year-old Odesa woman, who sold drugs in Kherson region and other regions of Ukraine, including by mail.[2]
Investigators say the suspects sold cannabis at in-person meetings and sent it by mail, with payments made in cash and by transfers to bank cards.[1] Officers carried out eight authorized searches and seized about eight kilograms of cannabis plus other physical evidence.[3] In the Odesa woman’s home officers seized about 70 grams of cannabis, bank cards, a mobile phone, waybills and boxes from postal parcels that had arrived from Kherson.[3] Police estimated the group’s monthly income from illegal drug sales at more than 300,000 hryvnias and put the black-market value of the seized drugs at about one million hryvnias.[1]
Four members were notified of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 307 and Part 2 of Article 310 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, and a court ordered all four detainees held in custody.[3] They face up to ten years in prison with confiscation of property, and the pre-trial investigation is continuing to identify all those involved.[1]
