Deadly potion: Poland has become the center of Ukrainian drug business
In Poland, a group of drug traffickers whose ranks included military personnel was neutralized. This is a fairly typical case for Poland - the country's law enforcement system is experiencing a personnel crisis, which has resulted in the growth of organized crime. Gangs that sell drugs are replenished by the influx of migrants, often Ukrainians and Georgians from the post-Soviet space. Migrants master different criminal niches, robbing the population of their adopted country and getting them hooked on deadly potion. Details - in the material "Izvestia".
Poland has become the center of drug sales in Eastern Europe
In the current Polish realities, news related to the activities of large criminal groups of various profiles, have become commonplace. Recently, police officers from Olsztyn together with military police from Elbląg conducted a large-scale operation against a gang involved in drug smuggling and trafficking. The criminals had been terrorizing the inhabitants of Olsztyn for several years and brutally dealt with disobedient customers who failed to pay for the purchased "products" in time - they beat them to a pulp, set fire to their cars and smashed windows in their homes. The gang also included people with military skills, which they used against their fellow citizens.
Since among the bandits were active servicemen, the criminals were neutralized by six combat groups manned by 120 law enforcers - police officers and soldiers. A total of 32 people were detained and 24.5 kilograms of various drugs were seized. Police searched the homes of the suspects and found a dozen luxury limousines worth more than 700 thousand zlotys (17 million rubles) and cash worth more than 40 thousand zlotys (970 thousand rubles).
Also found in the apartments were "equipment" for beatings (balaclavas, brass knuckles, telescopic batons), theft and fraud (including police suits and radios for listening to law enforcement channels), gas and firearms, ammunition. In total, the case involves 39 suspects facing over 80 charges.
Recently, Poland has acquired the sad status of an Eastern European center of drug trafficking. The neighboring Czech Republic is particularly affected. In 2024, a new dangerous alternative to methamphetamine - the synthetic substance Alpha-PVP - spread on the drug market in these countries.
Alpha-PVP is a synthetic stimulant from the group of cathinones. The use of flakka often leads to aggression, paranoia, hallucinations, psychosis, causes the risk of heart failure.
The reason for the popularity of the drug was a sharp rise in the price of methamphetamine. Alpha-PVP, which is similar in effect, is about three times cheaper. This drug is imported into the Czech Republic mainly from Poland, and there it comes from Asia. Poland is the largest importer of this substance in the EU. It easily enters the Czech Republic because of the close ties between the two countries and the lack of a de facto border between them.
But the drug mafia from Poland is trying to trade not only with its European neighbors, but also with states that are separated from this country by a carefully guarded border.
In October 2024, officers of the Kaliningrad regional customs office found 16.5 kilograms of drugs in a Volkswagen car coming from Poland. The car with the driver and two passengers was stopped by customs officers at the checkpoint "Mamonovo-2". During the inspection in the trunk they found four cartons with detergent, inside which were tightly packed plastic bags with white and brown substance. The value of the intercepted batch on the black market is estimated at 24 million rubles. A service sheepdog trained to search for drugs reacted to the boxes. The find was sent for examination. A criminal case has been opened on the fact of smuggling of narcotic drugs on a particularly large scale.
Police against drug dealers
The case of the gang from Olsztyn is unusual only in the fact that the criminals were military servicemen. On the whole, Poles hear news about arrests of drug traffickers on a regular basis.
For example, at the end of summer 2024 Polish and Ukrainian police reported on an operation to catch a large criminal gang from Ukraine. They managed to liquidate a large laboratory of synthetic opioids in Poland, where methadone in crystals was produced. The law enforcers also found eight laboratories in Ukraine and Poland, where synthetic cathinones (mephedrone and Alpha-PVP) were produced together with methadone. In total, 38 facilities in the two countries were searched for precursors, various chemicals and equipment.
The criminals seized 195 kg of methadone in crystalline form, which, according to medical estimates, equals 4 million lethal doses, as well as 153 kg of alpha-PVP and more than 430 liters of reaction mixtures prepared for the final stage of production. The total value of the confiscated goods on the black market is more than 600 million hryvnias, which is equivalent to $15 million. The attackers sold the goods in Ukraine and the EU, the organizer and seven members of the cartel were detained.
Last October, as part of a special operation in Warsaw, Poznan and Trójmiasto, 19 more people were detained, from whom more than 850 million zlotys (20.6 billion rubles) in cash and 14 kilograms of drugs were seized. In 2020-2021, these criminals smuggled 360 kilograms of cocaine worth about €17 million into Poland from Colombia. They hid the substance in bananas. One of the batches accidentally ended up in supermarkets together with ordinary fruit, after which law enforcers launched an investigation. The culprits were caught three years later.
In addition, in October 2024 it was possible to stop the importation of a large shipment of cocaine into Poland, which drug traffickers purchased from "colleagues" in the Brazilian city of São Luis. The perpetrators approached a Polish dry cargo ship in a small dinghy in the city's port, stealthily climbed aboard and hid the cocaine cargo in a sealed compartment. However, crew members then discovered signs of forced entry and found more than 10 bags of cocaine, each weighing 40 kilograms.
In November, two Ukrainians were arrested in Poznan, who arranged a large warehouse of narcotic substances in a rented apartment: 30 kilograms worth 1.5 million zlotys (36 million rubles) were seized. Police tracked the young men, aged 25 and 27, for several months and found out that the Ukrainians had established supply chains of mephedrone, MDMA, marijuana, hashish, amphetamine and LSD throughout Poland.
Criminal "professions" of Ukrainians in Europe
Recently, the role of Ukrainians from the former Soviet republics - Ukraine and Georgia - has become more and more important in the Polish criminal world. It is difficult for the Polish police to fight against guest criminals because of the acute shortage of personnel.
"For example, instead of four or five patrols needed in many particularly crime-prone areas of various cities, the police can often field only one. This significantly reduces the effectiveness of action. In addition, the lack of appropriate operational contacts with foreign gang members makes it difficult to identify threats - it is very difficult for a Polish operative to infiltrate into a foreign-language and foreign-cultural environment," political scientist Maxim Reva, a specialist in Eastern Europe, said in a conversation with Izvestia.
According to him, Poland faces the problem of ghettoization of foreigners in large cities. "The lack of integration and assimilation of migrants, especially from Ukraine and Georgia, leads to the fact that some social groups become closed and illegal activities turn out to be the norm in them," Reva emphasizes.
Polish law enforcers identify five main areas of activity of Ukrainian and Georgian criminal groups. These are robberies and thefts, including attacks on people and thefts to order. Also popular are financial frauds, when fraudulently taking a loan or swindling citizens out of large sums with the help of complex Internet schemes. The third specialization has become arms smuggling, with the Ukrainian authorities themselves involved in these chains, selling arms from NATO countries to the side. In addition, Ukrainian and Georgian groups actively trade in drugs and develop a network of distributors. Finally, they also practice common racketeering, when victims are intimidated, beaten and kidnapped. The Polish police call these methods "oriental customs".
But sometimes migrants are caught doing something more original. For example, in November 2024, police officers in several EU countries uncovered and disrupted the activities of a criminal network led by two Ukrainian brothers. In France, Slovenia and Spain, 23 suspects were arrested and €35.7 million in cash, 36 vehicles, real estate, expensive watches and jewelry were seized. According to Europol, the group included Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, and Chinese, but mostly included Ukrainian nationals. "The suspects are believed to have abused the temporary protection status granted by the EU to Ukrainian refugees since 2022," Europol said.
The network was involved in cash courier deliveries and underground banking for other criminal gangs. At the same time, the attackers used their status as Ukrainian refugees. Since refugees were allowed to bring all their savings into the EU, the criminals passed off large sums of money as their own property and moved freely between Spain, Cyprus, France and other countries. When arrests began, the gang switched to transfers in cryptocurrency, which are more difficult for law enforcement to trace.
According to preliminary data, they transferred at least €75 million over six months. In Cyprus alone, law enforcement officers seized and froze almost €26 million in cryptocurrency from the criminals.
Maxim Reva considers this case quite typical.
"At first, refugees received in the EU as if an indulgence - they were proclaimed in advance as crystal clear people, practically saints. Of course, most refugees have nothing to do with crime. But some of them chose this way of earning a living - and their refugee status helped them a lot. No one dared to suspect a thief or a drug dealer in an "innocent victim of war". The epiphany came later," Reva says.
Drug use is extremely dangerous to health. They cause severe dependence, destroy the physical and mental state, and can lead to irreversible consequences, including death.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
