Police in Lviv detained two men suspected of selling drugs and psychotropic substances across Ukraine, a 40-year-old Lviv resident and a 32-year-old man from Lviv district.[1][2] The two worked as so-called senders for one of Ukraine’s online drug shops, receiving large consignments, dividing them into smaller doses and posting them to buyers in various regions.[1][2] They rented a garage in Lviv’s Sykhiv district to store and pack the drugs.[1][3][4] The younger accomplice is a resident of Davydov, Leopolis.news reports.[5]

On 7 October officers detained the 32-year-old at a parcel locker in Lviv as he was about to post another batch, and found 26 prepared packages, 25 of them holding 210 g of a PVP-like substance and one holding 25 g of suspected amphetamine.[1] His 40-year-old accomplice was detained the same day near the rented garage, where investigators say he had just brought a new batch for packing and sale.[1] In the homes, cars and garage of the suspects officers seized drugs and packing equipment, the cannabis among them, alongside amphetamine, mephedrone, MDMA and PVP.[1] One car held more than 500 g of suspected cannabis, and other search sites held another 1.2 kg of cannabis.[1] Officers also intercepted postal parcels bound for customers in Chernivtsi, Cherkasy and Kharkiv oblasts, 30 g of cannabis among the contents.[1] The Lviv regional prosecutor’s office and Lviv region police put the black-market value of the whole haul, drugs and psychotropics together, at more than 2 million hryvnias.[1][4]

Both men were notified of suspicion of acquiring, storing for sale and selling narcotics and psychotropics in especially large amounts by a group acting in prior conspiracy, a charge carrying up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.[1] The prosecutor’s account puts the total PVP seized at 52 times the especially-large threshold and the amphetamine at almost 36 times it, but gives no such comparison for the cannabis.[5] Prosecutors documented 12 parcels sent to different regions of Ukraine whose recipients never received them because officers seized them.[5][4] The pretrial investigation is run by the second district police department of Lviv district, and both suspects are held in custody without the right to bail.[5] Both men are held in custody without the right to bail, and the pretrial investigation continues, with officers working to identify possible accomplices and supply channels.[1][4] Officers searched the men’s homes, the cars they used and the rented garage.[6]

Officers detained the 32-year-old in the act of posting another batch of parcels of amphetamine and PVP, and detained his 40-year-old accomplice the same day.[7]

According to preliminary findings, the men took payment into a crypto wallet.[8]