Małopolska police detained eight people, two of them members of the international Bandidos motorcycle gang, in an investigation into drug dealing and untaxed cigarettes.[1] Seven of the eight received charges, including possessing significant quantities of drugs and trading tobacco products without the required excise marks.[2]

The investigation was run by the drug-crime division of the Kraków provincial police (KWP) under the supervision of the District Prosecutor’s Office for Kraków-Prądnik Biały.[1] Police said the group came from Bochnia County and worked across several districts of the Lesser Poland (Małopolska) region.[1]

On 16 October, at the motorway toll booths in Balice, officers stopped two men driving delivery vans.[1] In the vans officers found almost half a million cigarettes without Polish excise marks.[1] The two detained drivers were a 38-year-old resident of Tarnów and a 47-year-old resident of Katowice.[1] Police identified both detained drivers as members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang.[1] The court jailed the 38-year-old for three months pending trial while the 47-year-old was released under non-custodial measures.[1] A search of the 38-year-old’s flat found a handgun with ammunition and more than 300 grams of mephedrone, cocaine and clephedrone, none of it reported to be cannabis.[1]

On 22 October, officers of the provincial drug unit and Bochnia criminal division detained six more people: two women aged 48 and 57 and four men aged 30, 33, 34 and 38.[1] Searches of their homes found amphetamine, marijuana, methamphetamine and mephedrone, which police said weighed almost 27 kilograms gross together.[1] Radio Kraków confirmed the 22 October searches found the four drugs with a combined gross weight of almost 27 kilograms.[3] Officers also seized a heat sealer, electronic scales, sealing foil and zip bags that police said served to prepare the drugs for sale.[1] Of the six arrested on 22 October, two men were held in pre-trial custody for three months and three were placed under police supervision, property sureties and a ban on leaving the country.[2] The near half-million untaxed cigarettes would have cost the state more than 500,000 zloty in excise duty and about 100,000 zloty in VAT, according to police.[2]