Russia’s federal drug control service said officers of the Pskov drug police had taken about 91 kilograms of Moroccan hashish out of circulation.[1] The service’s head, Viktor Ivanov, announced the result to journalists after an away meeting of the State Anti-Drug Committee.[1] Ivanov said the drugs never reached consumers, putting them at about 300,000 doses worth more than 60 million roubles.[1] The hashish was of Moroccan origin and travelled through 10 countries, among them Portugal, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland and Belarus, he said.[1] A group of 12 people organised the supply channel and drug police worked on it for a year and a half, according to Ivanov.[1]

At the end of January 2014, drug control officers and customs staff at the Burachki border checkpoint in Sebezhsky district stopped 46 kilograms 515 grams of hashish from being brought into the Customs Union.[1] The hashish was hidden in the fuel tank of a Volkswagen Sharan driven by a Moldovan citizen who was travelling into Russia from Latvia.[1] Prosecutors in Sebezhsky district said the hashish was found in the car’s tank as the accused crossed from Latvia into Russia near Burachki on the evening of 25 January 2014, and that the case had been sent to court.[2] Prosecutors put the quantity at 46,515 grams of hashish.[2] A court sentenced the driver, named as Kirill Goncharov, to 13 years in prison for smuggling narcotics on an especially large scale under part 4 of article 229.1 of the Criminal Code.[1]

The organiser of the supply channel, also a Moldovan citizen, was detained some time later in a raid that took an even larger amount of hashish.[1] He was arrested in the car park of an industrial estate run by the individual entrepreneur Voytov in the village of Gorki, Leninsky district, Moscow Oblast, where his Opel Astra held two checked bags of hashish wrapped with a chocolate scent to defeat sniffer dogs.[1] The hashish bars in the car weighed more than 38 kilograms; officers also found 85 more packages weighing more than 40 kilograms in a trailer on the same lot and about 12 kilograms of hashish in a Moscow garage he used.[1] Another member of the group, also a Moldovan citizen, was detained, and the drug police carried out all the arrests in a single night.[1]

The Pskov investigative department opened a criminal case over the Moscow arrests for preparation of an especially large sale of narcotics under part 1 of article 30 and part 5 of article 228.1 of the Criminal Code.[1] Officers also seized 315,000 roubles and 2,750 euros from the group.[1] The Pskov operation was run jointly with the second department of the drug control service’s second directorate in Moscow.[1]