The CBA does not give up on the drug mafia. Further detentions
Medicines worth almost PLN 30 million were sold within three years by pharmacies participating in an illegal distribution of medicines. Five individuals have been detained by the CBA in connection with the investigation into the so-called drug mafia.
The officers of the CBA Regional Office in Białystok and the investigators of the Podlasie Regional Unit for Organised Crime and Corruption of the National Public Prosecutor's Office have been conducting a multi-layered investigation concerning illegal trade in medicines. The evidence gathered in the case has resulted in detaining five persons - 4 men and a woman - in Podlaskie, Lubelskie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Wielkopolskie and Dolnośląskie Voivodships. The investigators' findings indicate that they are members of an organised crime group which deals with illegal export of medicines within the so-called reverse drug distribution chain. The detainees were associated with an entity running a pharmaceutical wholesale warehouse. The entity at stake was one of the links in the so-called reverse drug distribution chain, through which medicines illegally bought from pharmacies across the country were finally sold outside Poland.
Everything indicates that the role of the detained persons was to "recruit" individuals running pharmacies or their owners to cooperate with the criminal group. The drugs and the medicinal products were obtained from the pharmacies cooperating with the group and then they were exported outside Poland.
The above criminal activity was possible due to the fact that the pharmacies sold medicines on the basis of false orders, which indicated that they were intended for the needs of patients of a fictitious clinic.
In the course of the investigation, it was established that in the years 2015-2018, the detainees cooperated with a number of pharmacies which sold medicines worth almost PLN 30 million to the group. Thus, specialist medicines, often life-saving ones, as well as medicines included in the list of the Minister of Health indicating medicinal products, foodstuffs for special nutritional purposes and medical devices threatened with lack of availability in the territory of Poland, were not delivered to patients but were exported from the territory of Poland.
The detainees were transported to the premises of the Podlaskie Department for Organised Crime and Corruption of the National Public Prosecutor's Office in Białystok, where they were charged with participation in criminal activities of an organised crime group and violation of the prohibition on selling medicinal products from pharmacies or pharmaceutical outlets to pharmaceutical wholesalers. The prosecutor has applied non-custodial preventive measures against the detainees.
The case is developing and further activities are to be expected in the nearest future.
Public Relations Division of the CBA
-
Fot. © NataliiaMelnyc / Photogenica
