Prague, July 10 (CTK) – The first amphetamine lab has been revealed in the Czech Republic, the national anti-drug coordinator Jakub Frydrych told the website of the public Czech Radio (CRo), referring to a case of eight people charged with producing large amounts of the drug, its smuggling and distribution in Sweden.
The group delivered amphetamine to nearly whole of Sweden for five years, especially to the region around the city of Malmo, the website writes.
In Sweden, amphetamine is the second most frequent narcotic after marijuana, while in the Czech Republic methamphetamine (pervitin) is far more popular. Due to this, almost all the amphetamine produced was smuggled out of the country.
Up to several tens of kilogrammes of the drug were made in the lab within one cycle, which is more than the production of any of the revealed Czech pervitin labs.
The police revealed the amphetamine lab in Jablonec nad Nisou, north Bohemia, in 2016. According to experts, at least 3.5 tonnes of the drug was produced in the lab, which could be sold in Sweden for an equivalent of nearly one billion crowns.
The suspects, aged from 30 to 64 years, face up to 18 years in prison if found guilty. the supervising state attorney, Petra Pazderkova, told CRo.
Nearly all of the suspects are repeat criminals and some of them are part of the drug smuggling scene for a few decades. Two of them cooperated with the police.
Pazderkova said the evidence concerns the production of 264 kilogrammes of amphetamine in 2013-16.
Frydrych said the group operated in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden and Czech detectives cooperated also with their colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Germany.
The criminal group managed to avoid the police because they did not at all use mobile phones and all communication was direct, CRo writes.
Given their long criminal history, the members of the gang were acquainted with the forms and methods that the police use and they tried to avoid all communication due to which they might end up behind bars, Frydrych said.
