The Russian police annually expose about 100,000 crimes connected with illegal drug trafficking. Chief of the office of the Department for Combating Organized Crimes and Terrorism of the Russian Interior Ministry Stanislav Orlov told journalists about it on Tuesday.
As he said, 60 percent of drug crimes are connected with drug trafficking and activities of organized criminal groups in this sphere. “This year alone our staffers have already exposed 66,000 grave and especially grave drug crimes, prevented more than 550 facts of drug smuggling and disclosed over 2,300 crimes committed by groups of drug dealers,” Orlov said.
According to him, there is now a tendency towards decreasing number of registered drug crimes. “The peak of exposed crimes of the kind in Russia fell on 2001 when 240,000 such acts were registered. In the last years, their number has reduced,” Orlov said. “However,” he stressed, “this doesn’ t testify at all to the decline of police activity, but is just caused by changes in legislation.”
Special attention, according to the ministry’s representative, is paid to preventing drug crimes committed by criminal groups.” Now these structures are characterized by a high organizational level and good technical equipment. They use modern information and communication technologies, as well as Internet,” Orlov said.
In several cases, as he stressed, electronic forms of money payments for drugs have been registered. Besides, facts of transferring money for drugs through the system of international transfers of money have been revealed. “These circumstances considerably complicate the exposure and documenting of illegal drug deals,” Orlov stressed.
|