Police special operation in Odesa region: the “work” of drug dealers and wholesalers has been suspended
Four residents of the region established a systematic sale of wholesale batches of methadone, which was manufactured in a specially equipped drug laboratory. Its capacity allowed to produce about 2 kg of the drug every month. The monthly profit of the defendants reached about one million hryvnias.
At the beginning of March, the operatives of the Drug Crime Control Department in the Odessa region of the Department for Combating Drug Crimes of the National Police of Ukraine received information that a criminal group engaged in the manufacture and sale of drugs operates on the territory of the region.
The police established that two 33-year-old and 34-year-old residents of the Odessa region organized an illegal “business”. They rented a house in one of the country cooperatives on the territory of the Belgorod-Dnestrovsky district of the region, where they equipped a powerful drug laboratory in which methadone was manufactured. We sold the “goods” exclusively in wholesale batches and only to verified customers during personal meetings.
As the number of orders increased, they attracted two more familiar men, aged 24 and 38. Each month, they could synthesize about two kilograms of methadone.
Operatives together with the investigators of the Odessa region police, with the strong support of special officers of the KORD and TOR and under the procedural guidance of the Odessa Regional Prosecutor's Office, conducted sanctioned searches of the places of residence of the defendants and the locations of the laboratory. As a result, a large amount of different laboratory equipment, about three kilograms of methadone and about half a ton of different precursors were recovered. The cost of seized prohibited substances at the prices of the “black” market exceeds one million hryvnias.
The organizer and two active participants of the group were detained in accordance with Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. Investigators are already preparing a report for them on suspicion of committing a criminal offense provided for in part 2 of Article 307 (Illegal production, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation, shipment or sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
In relation to another member of the group, procedural decisions will be made after receipt of the results of the expert study. Violators face punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to 10 years with confiscation of property.
Department for Combating Drug Crimes of the National Police of Ukraine
