Nine people are indicted after several crackdowns on drug wholesalers in the Stockholm area.
According to the Swedish Customs Administration, they have been controlled by a criminal network – which, among other things, sold counterfeit drug tablets.
– If an addict takes these tablets without knowing what they contain, they risk their lives, says Kristian Johansson, head of the Customs Department’s Criminal Division East.
Just before Christmas 2023, quantities of similar packages dropped into various postal terminals around the Stockholm area. The packages were addressed to different addresses, but sent to the same fictitious name – and contained drugs.
Tracked suspect using package
Two of the shipments are allowed to be sent on, which led the Customs inspectors to a 38-year-old man in a security guard’s uniform. Using a fake driver’s license, he picked them up, which led to an arrest.
– We saw that the man first photographed the packages and then carried the shipments out to a car which we then followed. He drove to an apartment building on Gärdet and when he came out of one of the apartments we arrested him, says Kristian Johansson, head of the Swedish Customs Service’s criminal department East, in a press release.
In the man’s apartment, quantities of different types of narcotics were found, including cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine and cannabis. Also large amounts of drugs classified as narcotics.
Deadly opioid
During the investigation, eight more people were arrested and all are now indicted and suspected, among other things, of particularly serious drug offences.
– The most worrying seizure we made in the apartment at Gärdet was a large amount of counterfeit narcotic tablets which, after analysis, turned out to contain the very dangerous synthetic opioid metonitazen. If an addict takes these tablets without knowing what they contain, they risk their lives, says Kristian Johansson.
According to the police, around 30 people have lost their lives due to metonitaze. The business is suspected of having been administered via trading venues on the Darknet.