Police arrest 58, including 31 drug dealers, across Georgia
As a result of a personal and residential search of the suspects, police seized cocaine, heroin, buprenorphine, alpha-PVP, ketamine and marijuana, as well as other drugs and money, allegedly obtained from drug sales. Photo via Interior Ministry
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Law enforcement officers have arrested 58 individuals, including 31 drug dealers, for the sale, purchase, possession and smuggling of drugs across the country over the recent period, Georgian police said on Thursday.
The investigation established that the detainees had been involved in an online drug trafficking scheme and had placed various types of drugs at concealed spots, contacting clients through the internet to facilitate their extraction.
As a result of a personal and residential search of the suspects, police seized cocaine, heroin, buprenorphine, alpha-PVP, ketamine and marijuana, as well as other drugs and money, allegedly obtained from drug sales.
The crimes are punishable by up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.
Georgian police have arrested 10 individuals, including foreign citizens, for illegal drug-dealing in Tbilisi and other regions of the country.
Batumi City Court in Georgia’s west on Monday found Galip Öztürk, a Turkish businessman who owns tourist facilities in the coastal Adjara region, guilty of illegal purchase and possession of drugs and psychotropic substances, and sentenced him to eight years in prison.
The number of criminal cases across Georgia decreased over the past year compared to 2021 due to the “effective work” of law enforcement bodies and “constantly improving” legislation, Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said on Tuesday.
Georgian police on Tuesday said law enforcement officers had arrested 45 individuals, including 23 drug dealers, for sale, purchase, possession and smuggling of drugs across the country “over the recent period”.
Georgian police on Thursday said law enforcement officers had arrested 55 individuals on drug-related charges, including 37 for drug-dealing.
Georgian Interior Ministry, together with the Prosecutor’s Office solved a transnational crime involving drug-dealing scheme, identified dozens of members of the criminal group and arrested 22 individuals, Teimuraz Kupatadze, the head of the Central Criminal Police department said on Thursday at the press briefing.