CHELYABINSK. April 18 (Interfax) - The Federal Security Service has seized 41 kilograms of heroin and 10 kilograms of hashish from three natives of Tajikistan in the Chelyabinsk region, the Service reported on Thursday.
The Tajik citizens residing in Chelyabinsk bought a large batch of narcotics in their home country in early April and intended to sell the drug to hitherto unidentified persons in the Moscow region, it said.
The partners in crime set up a company in the South Urals to sell dried fruit from Central Asia in Russian regions. They planned to make the first drug shipment to Moscow under the guise of dried apricots and plums.
"They hid some of the drugs, 20 kilograms of heroin and 10 kilograms of hashish, in an Iveco Stralis 480 vehicle rented from a motor transportation company under bags of dried fruit and pumpkin seeds. "The counterintelligence service stopped the vehicle on a road in the Chelyabinsk region and searched it on April 15," the press release said.
The Federal Security Service detained the shipment organizers at the Chelyabinsk Airport on the same day.
The remaining part of the drugs, 21 kilograms of heroin, was found in vehicles owned by the drug dealers.
The investigative department of the Russian Federal Security Service's department in the Chelyabinsk region opened criminal cases against the suspects on the counts of "preparations for the illegal sale of large quantities of narcotic drugs by a group of conspiring individuals". The court ordered the arrest of all three suspects.