Officers of the Central Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia have detained eight people on charges of illegal acquisition and possession of especially large quantities of drugs, smuggling them into Georgia, and facilitating their distribution. The detainees include citizens of Georgia, Turkey, and Japan.
Following searches of the suspects’ residences, personal searches, and investigative experiments, law enforcement officers seized especially large batches of narcotic and psychotropic substances prepared for sale from caches indicated by the suspects. Specifically, they seized cocaine, methadone, buprenorphine, methamphetamine, opium, amphetamine, marijuana, cannabis plants, and approximately 300 pregabalin tablets as physical evidence.
Some of the detainees were exposed during a special operation conducted by the Central Criminal Police Department in cooperation with the Customs Department of the Revenue Service, which involved the controlled substitution of postal packages addressed to them. Especially large quantities of drugs were seized during the operation.
In addition, during the investigation, police found materials intended for packaging drugs.
The alleged offenses carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.