MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service has seized over 970 kilos of synthetic drugs concentrate worth over 38 billion rubles ($599 million) in a special operation, Service Head Viktor Ivanov said on Thursday.
"A large-scale special operation, the Estonian Nocturne, has been carried out to liquidate a transnational criminal group engaged in the delivery of wholesale batches of synthetic drugs concentrate from South-East Asia to Russia," he said.
The drug control officers established that criminals were using heavy-duty trucks to transport large batches of synthetic drugs to Russia across the Russian-Chinese border and store them at a wholesale transshipment base in Ussuriysk.
"After that, drugs were transported in batches of 150 to 300 kilos to Novosibirsk and Kazan by small-tonnage trucks in specially equipped hiding places," the chief of Russia’s drugs control service said.
Overall, Russian drug control police have detained 23 persons, opened criminal cases and are carrying out search and investigative measures.
"In the first nine months of this year alone, drug control agencies seized over 3 tons of synthetic drugs or 60% more than in the entire previous year," Ivanov said.
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