Police officers from the Katowice Central Bureau of Investigation of the Police, under the supervision of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Częstochowa, are conducting an investigation into an organized criminal group of an international nature involved in smuggling marijuana from Spain to Poland and France and subsequently distributing it. “According to the investigators’ findings, the group began operating in 2019. The marijuana was concealed in shipments, in specially prepared hiding places in the transported goods, and then smuggled by land using legally operating transport companies,” informs Agnieszka Rzeźnicka-Gniadek, spokesperson for the Lower Silesian KAS.
She adds: “The first operations took place in March in Bolesławiec County, when CBŚP officers, supported by officials from the Lower Silesian Customs and Tax Office in Wrocław, seized vacuum-sealed plastic bags containing 19 kg of marijuana. The marijuana had been hidden inside the metal casing of an industrial room-drying device that formed part of the transported cargo. The equipment, together with the drugs, was transported by two drivers who were unaware that they were participating in the smuggling of illegal substances.
The CBŚP officers’ operations did not end there, and recently the officers carried out another action, this time in Kraków County. They arrested six suspects, aged between 32 and 77, residents of the Małopolskie and Silesian Voivodeships.
As a result of searches conducted both at the detainees’ homes and in the cars they used, as well as in warehouses, a further 34 kg of marijuana was secured. The spokesperson said:
As part of the same operation, information was passed to the French side through the CBŚP liaison officer at Europol. On the basis of this information, French services in Morvillars, eastern France, seized 19 kg of marijuana. The Polish driver transporting the goods most likely was also unaware that he was carrying drugs.
In total, six people were charged in connection with the case, and 72 kg of marijuana with an estimated black-market value of approximately PLN 2.5 million was seized. This quantity of drugs could have yielded approximately 72,000 individual sale portions.
At the prosecutor’s office, the suspects were charged with participation in an organized criminal group, as well as smuggling, possessing and distributing significant quantities of marijuana.