Psychoactive drugs

Police officers in northern Greece arrested two people from drug trafficking on Tuesday night after discovering more than 12 kilos of heroin in their car.

The suspects, a 33-year-old foreign national, believed to be a leading member of a bigger drug ring, and a 27-year-old Greek woman, believed to be a member of the gang, where stopped at the Malgara toll station, near Thessaloniki. 

The people arrested last week in connection with the shipment of 104 kilos of cocaine from Ecuador to Thessaloniki in a container of bananas had also previously attempted to import 5 tons of cocaine into Greece from Peru, according to the case file opened by the Narcotics Department of Thessaloniki, which handled the case.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, GI-TOC, a Geneva-based NGO, published a report on Monday warning that Balkan airports are vulnerable to organised crime and that Belgrade and Skopje airports in particular are regional hubs for illicit activities.

More than 100 kilograms of cocaine were seized by police in Thessaloniki investigating a drug smuggling network.

According to reports on Tuesday, investigators have arrested nine suspects in what is being described as an ongoing operation against the racket.

A woman on trial for the murder of her eldest daughter in 2022, will stand trial for the deaths of her youngest two daughters as well, her lawyer has said.

Alexis Kougias also announced that he had requested that his client, Roula Pispirigou, be evaluated by two psychiatrists to determine if she suffers from Munchausen syndrome.

Istanbul police's anti-narcotic unit has seized over 650 kilograms of methamphetamine in the latest operation, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has informed.

The teams busted 654 kilograms of crystal and liquid methamphetamine in the operation carried out in the Beykoz district, Soylu wrote in a social media post, congratulating the unit.

A drug smuggler wanted by Interpol with a red notice, Urfi Çetinkaya, has been detained in a villa in Istanbul's Sarıyer district along with five other people.

Istanbul police's anti-terror unit raided the villa with the support of special operations team on late April 11. He was then taken to the police station after a health check.

A shipment of cocaine with a street value of €600,000 was found on a container ship in Piraeus last Sunday, authorities have announced.

The cocaine, which was wrapped in 20 packages of cocaine, weighed about 17.5 kilograms.

Two men were arrested in the northern city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday afternoon for possessing and selling drugs, local police said Thursday.

It was not the only case of suspect capital in North Macedonia's medicinal cannabis industry, a BIRN investigation has found, suggesting that a determination to promote the sector has led to lapses in the vetting of potential investors.

Excerpt from the 2001 White Paper of the Serbian Ministry of Interior. Photo by BIRN