Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has neutralized a criminal group that organized an international channel for smuggling hard drugs from southern Europe into Ukraine, seizing the largest cocaine shipment since the start of the full-scale war, worth around UAH 70 million, the SBU reported.
The agency said on its Telegram channel on Wednesday that the illegal operation generated monthly "revenue" of UAH 15-20 million.
"As part of the special operation, 10 members of the drug syndicate were simultaneously detained in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions; they were selling wholesale batches of cocaine, ecstasy and other psychotropic substances brought in from abroad," the SBU said.
According to case materials, the group’s coordinator in Ukraine was a Kyiv resident. "He recruited ‘workers’ on specialized forums who, for payment, sold drugs in various regions of Ukraine," the agency said.
During the first round of searches, about 2 kg of cocaine and other banned substances were seized from the suspects, the SBU said. More than 8 kg of additional cocaine and other potent substances were later found in the suspects’ hideouts.
"The total value of what was seized is around UAH 70 million," the security service said.
All 10 detainees have been notified of suspicion under Part 3, Article 307 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code - illegal production, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation, shipment or sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues, committed by an organized group.
The suspects are in custody.
The SBU also said it has documented the involvement of three Ukrainian nationals residing in the Kingdom of Spain in organizing the drug-trafficking channel. The question of their extradition to Ukraine is currently being decided.
The operation was carried out under the procedural guidance of the Dnipro district prosecutor’s office of Kyiv.
