MOSCOW. Nov 23 (Interfax) - The Russian police have put an end to the production and distribution of synthetic drugs in the Moscow and Ivanovo regions and have seized over one tonne of illegal substances, Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk said.
"A criminal case has been opened under Article 210 of the Russian Criminal Code (organization of or participation in a criminal group) against four suspected leaders and 14 members of the transborder criminal group," Volk told journalists on Monday.
According to the police, the group was making large quantities of narcotics in the Moscow and Ivanovo regions and was distributing the drugs wholesale in various parts of Russia.
The group was established no later than in September 2019 and operated through February 2020.
Ukrainian citizens synthesized the drugs at three illegal laboratories. Citizens of Moldova and Russia served as buyers, packers, and mules who carried wholesale batches to Russian regions by car, Volk said.
"Illegal products made by the labs were sold through a store which the criminal group organizers opened on the DarkNet," she said.
The accomplices delivered and pushed the drugs in a contactless manner, using caches, and coordinated their activity via Internet messenger services, Volk said.
"The location of three illegal drug labs, in each of which four members of the criminal group were detained, as well as temporary residences of other members of the drug syndicate were established," she said.
Five accomplices were detained while packing drugs and one was apprehended when trying to retrieve drugs from a cache, Volk said.
Volk did not say when and where the detentions were carried out but said that a court issued an arrest warrant.
The police uncovered the involvement of another ten citizens of Ukraine and Russia in the criminal group's activity. Four of them were illegally producing large amounts of synthetic drugs in a laboratory, and six were dealing the drugs online in the Vladimir region. "They have also been taken into custody," Volk said, adding that the criminal proceedings had been combined into one.
"As a result, over one tonne of synthetic drugs, as well as about ten tonnes of precursors and chemicals and laboratory equipment have been removed from illegal circulation," she said.
The leaders and members of the criminal group have been charged with the illegal production and distribution of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, or their analogues. They are facing up to the life in prison, Volk said.