MOSCOW: A specialized subdivision has been formed at the Russian Federal Drug Control Service to analyze information about new drugs, such as spice. Russia banned some types of smoking blends four years ago. Victor Ivanov, heading the Federal Service, has recently returned from China and described progress in combating international criminal drug groups.
“It has been the 10th meeting at the level of heads of the FDCS and the Chinese Public Security Ministry in the last 5 years. We have achieved three significant results with Minister Guo Shengkun. First of all, we agreed on the need for joint actions for priority goals in liquidating drug production in Afghanistan on a high scale. The second thing is joint strategic operations to combat the smuggling and distribution of narcotics. The third is formation of a common anti-spice front,” said the official.
Ivanov has described the joint Trojan Horse Operation, it continued for two years and highlighted the unique opportunities of Moscow and Beijing in fighting trans-national organized drug crime. “Citizen Eric Chang, who was operating in the city of Shanghai, organized shipments to 56 countries of the world. We located, counted over 4,000 large gross shipments of drugs to the countries by studying electronic traffic. The group ceased to exist. The group was international. Besides Chinese, it had Russian citizens. They were operating in the Lyublino District. The Russian-Chinese operation started at Lyublino because we detected the appearance of new traders, new drugs. Monitoring traffic allowed us to find participants, distributors, organizers, find smuggling channels and adjoin the Chinese resources. A high-scale operation was held in China and Shanghai, where dozens of drug criminals headed by the said Eric Chang were arrested,” Ivanov goes on.
He handed materials to Chinese colleagues. The documents include personal data, data of electronic communication lines, addresses of their electronic wallets, criminal groups under investigation.
China, Russia and Thailand united efforts to fight organized crime: “An agreement was reached to realize three operations: Orient Express, Triumvirate and Mosaic. The point is that the Orient Express we realized in September allowed us to stop a large international group organizing shipments of synthesized drugs from China, from Siping City. Drugs were following the route Siping-Beijing-Vladikavkaz-Moscow, then to 15 regions of the RF from Moscow. We destroyed the main link of the group, but control over the group and shipments was in the Kingdom of Thailand, where our citizens stay and control the process. The operation was carried out in 15 regions of the country, including Moscow, but some organizers from regions escaped to Thailand and are staying there at the moment. That is why, considering the better opportunities of our Chinese colleagues to work with Thailand, we decided to get down to the group of those organized criminals as three countries: Russia, China and Thailand. We “took” 700kg of high-concentrate synthetic drugs that can produce about 25 tons of smoking blends, that is the scale of activities. The portion is worth 8 billion rubles. Now the group is paralyzed, but they are still making new efforts to change the profile of their work by taking new nicknames, using new Internet platforms and hostings beyond Russia, China and Thailand to organize their criminal business.”