Raul Koppelmaa, head of the narcotics department of the investigation department of the Tax and Customs Office, explained that 3-MMC is an isomer of mephedrone, characterized by a stimulating effect and the ability to cause hallucinations. “The substance arrived in Estonia from Cyprus and the destination country was Lithuania,” Koppelmaa said. “The massive shipment contained 26 cylindrical containers, inside which nearly 400 kilos of substances were triple-packed in plastic.”
He stressed that international operational cooperation as well as effective control measures by the Tax and Customs Bureau were important key factors in discovering the substance and catching the criminals.
“The management of the Tax and Customs Office envisages automated and data-based checks, to which is added a check by a qualified customs officer, so all risks are assessed electronically and checks are carried out in several stages,” Koppelmaa said . “Clandestine trade does not go unnoticed and the probability of being discovered is high.”
Prosecutor Raigo Aas said that large quantities of narcotics are increasingly being caught in Estonia. “On the one hand, this demonstrates the good work done by Estonia in the fight against dangerous substances, but on the other hand it means a sad trend: Estonia is increasingly a destination and transit country on the drug market. As a rule , the transportation of such large quantities is organized not by a single lover of things, but by a criminal who systematically earns criminal profits at the expense of people’s lives and health,” Aas said.
“The job of law enforcement both in Estonia and elsewhere is to identify such criminals, arrest them and bring them to justice. This is the only way to keep substances off the streets whose effects can be unpredictable on those who use them. Unfortunately, the The unpredictable effect of drugs is also reflected in the statistics, as more and more illicit substances contribute to overdose deaths. Unfortunately, we must admit that this year the statistics are particularly sad because, according to unconfirmed data, the use of drugs has caused a hundreds of deaths, the worst number in recent years,” Aas said.
The preliminary investigation of the criminal case is conducted by the Narcotics Department of the Lithuanian Customs Authority.
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2023-12-28 05:29:31
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