Police arrest 24, including 18 drug dealers in Tbilisi, other regions

Georgian police officers have arrested 24 individuals, including 18 drug dealers, for sale, purchase and possession of drugs in Tbilisi and other regions of the country.

Teimuraz Kupatadze, the head of the central criminal police department, told the media on Tuesday citizens of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan were among those arrested.

Kupatadze also said the interior ministry had uncovered an online drug trafficking scheme and arrested three Kazakh citizens who had placed various types of drugs at concealed spots and contacted clients through the internet to facilitate their extraction.

Police seized two kilograms of cocaine and over half a kilogram of psychoactive drug ketamine during a personal search of the suspects.

During a search of other suspects, officers also seized 490 pills of buprenorphine, heroin, cocaine, alpha- PVP, ketamine and subutex in “especially large quantities”.

The crimes are punishable up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.