Czech Police charge seven people with transporting drugs from Ústí Region to Slovakia

On the basis of collaboration between the Czech and Slovak Police, a total of 15 perpetrators were arrested at the end of 2014 and start of 2015 on the territory of each state through two separate operations targeting the extensive, illegally organized international trade in methamphetamine. The National Anti-Drug Headquarters (Národní protidrogová centrála – NPC) has charged seven people with responsibility for this alleged criminal drug activity, including the export of marijuana and methamphetamine through several courier routes from the Ústí Region to eastern Slovakia.  

Police officers are pursuing charges against three Czech citizens and four Slovak citizens who are in custody after confiscating a kilo of methamphetamine and three kilos of marijuana. News server Romea.cz is informed that Marcel Cichý, a teacher at a local primary school and a town councilor in Trmice who is also a member of the Romani community, is among those charged.  

As part of operation "SIESTA", the collaboration between the Czech NPC and the National Anti-Drug Unit in Slovakia succeeded in discovering the seven-member internationally organized group of perpetrators involved in the illegal trade of marijuana and methamphetamine at the start of 2015. The operation was initiated by detectives from the NPC in November 2014 on the basis of collaboration with Slovak Republic Police, the aim of which was to document the criminal activity of organized crime groups involved in the purchase of marijuana and methamphetamine, including indoor cultivation on the territory of the Czech Republic and export to Slovakia.  

During the course of the investigation, detectives succeeded in documenting several courier routes for transporting the cultivated marijuana and methamphetamine produced to Slovakia, where the drugs were distributed. This group of perpetrators exported approximately three kilos of marijuana and one kilo of methamphetamine between November 2014 and their arrest at the beginning of January 2015.

The head of the Slovak National Anti-Drug Unit, Marián Geleta, said the couriers mainly used automobiles but sometimes traveled by bus or train. "Dealers in high positions in the East Slovakian Region were supplied at regular intervals. On the basis of that information, our unit began its work, which consisted of discovering the supplier network," he said.  

In the Czech Republic three persons are being prosecuted for the especially serious crimes of unauthorized production and handling of narcotic drugs, poisons, and psychotropic substances under Section 283/1, 3c) and 4c) of the Criminal Code, for which they face between 10 and 18 years in prison if convicted. The persons arrested in Slovakia, if convicted, face anywhere between 20 and 25 years in prison.

Geleta told the Czech News Agency that even though the drug scene has been relatively stable over the past five years, certain changes have been observed in Slovakia nonetheless. These include, for example, the disappearance of the heroin trade.  

"It’s as if it never existed in Slovakia. They replaced it with synthetic drugs," he said.

Over the past three years, approximately, Geleta said the barter trade of goods for goods had also become typical. "In southern Slovakia, on the border with Hungary, drugs are exchanged. Marijuana and methamphetamine travel abroad from our country in exchange for marijuana and new psychoactive substances from the other direction. Some are already on the list of banned substances, but some are still beyond our control," Geleta said.

The head of the Slovak anti-drug force said he believes Slovakia is similar to the Czech Republic when it comes to the trade and use of marijuana and methamphetamine. "That’s why police collaboration is so important. The other neighboring countries such as Austria, Hungary and Poland don’t share this trend," he said.  

In the Czech Republic an estimated six tons of methamphetamine are consumed annually. There are large-scale methamphetamine production facilities in the Czech Republic that can produce 20 – 40 kilos of drugs per production cycle; in 2013 the Czech Police succeeded in confiscating a record amount of almost 70 kilos of methamphetamine.