How to carry weed on a train. How Russian customs officers catch drug smugglers

The lady checked in hashish, cocaine, a suitcase...

To become a doctor, biologist, detective and botanist all in one, it will take dozens of years spent at your desk. Or you can acquire this knowledge by getting a job at customs. Every day, thousands of passengers pass before the eyes of the employees of this department, among whom you need to spot the one who hides prohibited substances in his suitcase. And sometimes not only in a suitcase, but inside your body. How to scan people without an x-ray built into the eye, what harmless souvenirs can get you imprisoned for 20 years and what is the danger of shamanic tea from Peru, on the Day of Worldwide Fight against Drug Smuggling, June 26, Domodedovo Customs employees told MK: the head of the anti-drug department drug smuggling Artem BELOTURKIN and his deputy Anton KARAULKIN.

The employees of the department for combating drug smuggling at Domodedovo Airport are professionals in their field. Photo: domodedovo.customs.ru

- Let's start with the numbers. How many drugs do couriers try to bring into our country every year?

A.B.:- Over the current year, we have identified 13 cases of seizure of narcotic drugs and initiated 5 criminal cases directly by Domodedovo customs itself. We seized over 6 kg of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, and dimethyltryptanine, which is also called DMT for short. For comparison: in 2016, there were 28 arrests and 14 criminal cases were initiated. By weight it is almost 16 kg.

A.B.:- For cocaine, this is the Dominican Republic, direct flights twice a week, even more often in the summer. If we take heroin, then this is, of course, Central Asia. But statistics show that the number of cases of detection of heroin smuggling has decreased significantly compared to 2014. This can be explained by the opening of customs borders. The Eurasian Customs Union includes countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, which directly border Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which are the main producers of heroin. There is simply no point in drug dealers transporting poison by air if they can enter Kyrgyzstan and enter Russia without any customs procedures.

If a courier flies a direct flight from Dushanbe to Moscow, then the probability of his detention is very high - these flights are intensively processed. Therefore, they travel by car to Kyrgyzstan, where, in principle, control is weak, and in some countries there are even routes along which you can easily get to the territory of a neighboring state.

- Have new source countries appeared over the past year or two?

A.B.:- One of the new countries in drug trafficking is China, which produces many synthetic drugs. Starting from the well-known spice to chemical substitutes for heroin, which cost less than real powder, but can be much stronger in their effect on the body. We call them newly synthesized drugs. That is, there is a drug formula that is prohibited in Russia. What are the Chinese doing? They change it slightly, and it ceases to be on the list.

So what should we do? It turns out that you know that the courier has a newly synthesized drug, but it is impossible to detain him? Are your hands tied?

A.B.:- We found a way out of this - this procedure is called “recognition as an analogue”. If we understand that the substance is new, we immediately send it for laboratory testing, recognize it as an analogue and initiate a case.

For example, in 2015 there was the discovery of a completely new drug. In appearance, this substance is liquid, dark brown in color. It comes to us in plastic bottles, in appearance you can’t tell it from draft beer. The substance is a strong psychedelic. It is used by shamans in Peru for rituals and meditation. And our people who used drugs understood what the magic was. When you use it, hallucinations begin, a connection with the other world, you can see even gnomes, even fairies. In its homeland it is called ayahuasca tea. They drink and begin the ritual of exorcising demons.

- How did you manage to understand that it was a drug? How did you discover it?

A.B.:- It all started when four passengers brought 70 liters. Imagine: a suitcase filled with bottles of liquids! Of course he aroused interest. When we started to find out what it was, the passengers said that it was a shampoo to improve hair growth. The inspectors found this suspicious, and the substance was taken for examination. In the end, all the ins and outs were revealed. By the way, the population of people who use this “fashionable” drug are people from 20 to 40 years old, that is, young and advanced people.

- What can you say about your favorite ways to hide drugs? On myself? In itself?

A.B.:- Now there are almost no swallowers. They are hidden mainly in luggage, in personal belongings. Recently there was a detention - almost a kilogram of cocaine in a music column. At the beginning of the year, they tried to smuggle 6 kilos of cocaine in a double-bottom suitcase. The main thing is that even with such a simple trick they managed to pass control in the Dominican Republic. Alas, not all intelligence services are developed in all states. I remember they tried to transport heroin in the form of pistachio nuts. Can you imagine this nut? Everything is just like the real thing: in a shell, with a green kernel sticking out, and inside there are bags of heroin taped over. The same story with fruits - covered with peels. Apples, pears! Using the same technology.

A.K.:- They carried briquettes on a back belt made of dog hair. If you wear loose clothing, you may not even notice the load. There were 2 of them, 1 kg each.

A.B.:- We do not take into account small weights now. There could be a drug anywhere. For example, people flew to Goa and used drugs there. We went to the beach with a backpack and stored marijuana in it. They flew here, and they had very little left there. Well, they forgot, but the canine department dog smelled it. But according to our legislation, the weight of contraband is not defined. That is, the person will be detained in any case. We were once detained with a marijuana weight of 0.02 grams.

A.K.:- There was another illustrative case. Two young men were on holiday in India. Before leaving the hotel, while in his room, one was throwing pieces of hashish against the wall while the other was getting ready. And a couple of these pieces accidentally flew into this friend’s bag, bouncing off the wall. This piece was found by the canine service at Domodedovo airport. As a result, a criminal case was initiated.

What about stories like the last Dominican one, when a girl was invited to rest by an acquaintance and used as a courier, slipping a kilogram of cocaine into her suitcase? How to prove that you really did not know about the contents of your luggage?

A.B.:- Here you can write to all authorities, but, alas, the fact is obvious. If we take this story specifically, yes, perhaps the girl was used in secret. But why did she use it herself? But she did this when she was there. The investigation will establish her involvement. But if she didn’t use, it would be easier for her to justify herself. But it would still be in court.

A.K.:- In general, most often they don’t plant it, but ask to hand over an object, without saying that there is a narcotic drug there. This could be an unremarkable bottle of rum or cigar, or souvenirs. We now have many compatriots who have established their own tourism business in the Dominican Republic. And now a guide or photographer takes you around the country. The relationship has developed and everything is fine. And at the end he tells you: “I have relatives in Moscow. Give them some rum and cigars." This is where everything is going on.

- What do the caught couriers say? Why do they agree to this dirty work?

A.B.:- Most say that they supposedly have a difficult life situation, a lot of children to pity them. Especially Asian swallowers - the economic situation in the countries there is difficult. Just five years ago, a swallower from Tajikistan received up to 1.5 thousand dollars for half a kilo of heroin. As for cocaine, it's easy money. Imagine: a week’s vacation, all inclusive, 100–300 thousand rubles for transportation. It makes your head go crazy if you don’t think about the prospect of spending 20 years behind bars.

What ridiculous explanations do you remember? After all, couriers are probably starting to spout utter nonsense out of fear!

A.B.:- The swallower was funny from Tajikistan, 22 years old. We asked what was in the stomach, and he answered that he did not know. We show him the X-ray, but he still refuses. He says: “Yesterday I was drinking with friends and passed out, and when I woke up, they brought me to the airport, they say you’re flying to Moscow.” And he has about 100 containers in his stomach!

A.K.:- There was also a Russian citizen who brought about 30 grams of hashish. He explained his presence in this way: he went on vacation to India, one morning he went out onto the balcony of his room and saw some incomprehensible package or container lying on the roof of the hotel. He took it, stuck it, excuse me, in the anus and flew in. But I didn’t bother to look at what was in the package.

A.B.:- There are also ladies. Last year we seized 70 grams of cocaine this way. The girl, who had just turned 18 two months earlier. It was all wrapped in plastic and hidden in the female genital organs.

- Your area of ​​responsibility now includes Zhukovsky International Airport. Were there any arrests there?

A.K.:- It has been operating since March last year, and one of the first international flights was to Tajikistan. But drug couriers are reluctant to use this airport. Imagine: a thousand people are walking to Domodedovo or a hundred to Zhukovsky. But there is a direct relationship between passenger traffic and the number of identified cases of transportation. Therefore, no evidence of drug importation has been recorded there yet.

TASHKENT, June 22 – Sputnik, Alexey Stefanov. Drug couriers from the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus are becoming more inventive every day, but employees of the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation are still stopping smuggling.

The leadership of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) did not come empty-handed to the press conference “Customs against drug trafficking.” On the table were laid out items in which drug shipments were transported - a telescopic handle from a suitcase, a camera, shoes, books, playing cards, fruits, vegetables, flatbread and even nuts. One of the journalists asked whether it was drugs peeking out from the opened caches, but the customs management assured that they were dummies.

Sputnik

As Anatoly Seryshev, deputy head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, said, since the beginning of 2017, Russian customs officers have seized over 2.5 tons of narcotic, psychotropic and potent drugs. Among them are heroin, hashish, cocaine, marijuana, and new psychotropic substances. According to him, drug smuggling is mainly stopped in the European direction, however, the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus are still in the drug trafficking chain. From this side, they are trying to smuggle into Russia consignments consisting of opium and cannabis groups.

Sputnik

“We have two routes for Afghan drugs to enter: the Kazakh direction and the countries of Transcaucasia. Kazakhstan - because Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan are nearby, from where drugs are smuggled. From the countries of Transcaucasia, they try to import drugs by land through Armenia and Georgia, and from Azerbaijan, more often with the help air transport. Part of the transit cargo coming from Azerbaijan passes through the territory of Russia and goes to Europe," Anatoly Seryshev told a Sputnik correspondent.

He explained that the most fruitful cooperation between Russian customs has been established with Kazakh colleagues. Russian customs officers also work closely with Tajikistan. But with Uzbekistan, “cooperation is proceeding along the path of developing algorithms and mechanisms,” Seryshev pointed out.

He also emphasized that drugs from Afghanistan enter Russia either through the countries of Central Asia or through the South Caucasus. If the Iran-Azerbaijan direction is used, then, as a rule, they try to import the cargo by land to Dagestan, after which it transits through Russia, is transported to Belarus and further to Europe.

Sputnik

“There was such a story - a shipment of heroin was loaded in Afghanistan, it was moved through the territory of Iran, and then Azerbaijani carriers got involved in the process, since, according to the agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan, only Azerbaijani and Russian carriers have the right to move cargo at preferential treatment at checkpoints ". The Azerbaijanis tried to deliver the drug to Europe, but they managed to stop the smuggling in Dagestan. The cover product was Georgian-produced mineral water - "Borjomi," Kuznetsov spoke about one of the major arrests. But in addition to large quantities of drugs, small drug couriers are also detained almost every day, they smuggle small amounts of contraband in their personal belongings. Every day they become more inventive, but they still get punctured. Thus, recently at the airport, a citizen of Tajikistan was detained at the airport, who had a kilogram bag of pistachios in his hand luggage. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that each nut contained there was a drug - before the flight, he or his accomplices opened each nut and instead of the kernel they put a small bag of drugs inside.

“In addition to nuts, usually walnuts, citizens of Tajikistan often hide illegal cargo in onions and pomegranates. You can easily pack contraband into a shipment of potatoes. And the flatbread in which the drugs were smuggled belonged to a citizen of Uzbekistan. He was carrying seven such flatbreads in his hand luggage, and one turned out to have 700 grams of heroin hidden,” said Kuznetsov.

There are different types of drugs and they all definitely kill people, but unfortunately, this does not scare everyone. It would seem that drug dealers have the simplest job (not counting the fact that you can go to jail for a long time for a long time), take it and sell it. But the whole difficulty is to deliver a batch of this rubbish to the place of sale. Customs officials have seen a lot of things in the attempts of smugglers to bring drugs across the border. We offer you a selection of unsuccessful tricks of drug traffickers that were exposed right at customs.

Cocaine diaper

He's the same

A man tried to sell cocaine by shaping it into a skull and hiding it under his wig.

These bags of cocaine were seized from a bra by customs officers

Thousands of dollars worth of cocaine was hidden in black bean cans

A smuggler wanted to smuggle bags of cocaine across the border by hiding them in frozen pellets of ground goat.

Attempt to transport marijuana in souvenir vases

Attempt to smuggle drugs by sewing them into underpants

Attempt to smuggle heroin with bandages on legs

It was taken out of someone's ass

Attempting to hide bags of heroin in a car mechanism

Drugs under the motorcycle seat

Attempting to disguise bags of marijuana as a twisted garden hose

Loser surfer tried to smuggle drugs using his board

In 2005, a large shipment of cannabis weighing 5 tons and hidden in furniture was intercepted in England. Drugs worth ~722 million rubles were seized

This locker is guaranteed to transport you to Narnia

X-ray of drugs hidden in a mule

An X-ray of the Labrador Rex, inside of whom they also tried to smuggle drugs, and who, most likely, would have been killed after passing control

Drugs recovered from Rex's cavity

Attempting to hide drugs behind a car license plate

In a beer can

Trying to snag cocaine in an avocado peel

Drug dealers stuffed champagne bottle tightly with drugs

Employees of the Vnukovo customs reported on the results of the fight against drug smuggling for 2014 and five months of 2015, revealed during the inspection of EMS mail, the luggage of some passengers and even the contents of their stomachs. Particular attention is paid to flights from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Tajikistan and China. Lenta.ru analyzed the activities of customs officers and prepared some recommendations for Russian travelers during the holiday season.

Busy border

In 2014, 5,802,444 people passed through Vnukovo customs. Despite the Ukrainian crisis, passenger traffic on international flights increased by 21 percent compared to 2013. Accordingly, the workload on customs officials has increased, and there are only 155 of them, along with management and logistics services.

This year, according to the deputy head of the passenger customs post, Gennady Barannikov, the emphasis will be on the use of various technical means of border control. In the near future, a new device will be installed at Vnukovo airport to detect drugs transported intracavitarily, that is, in the stomach. The so-called “swallowers” ​​cause a lot of trouble for anti-smuggling fighters - they are difficult to identify.

The situation with baggage checks is easier. Bags, suitcases and bales arriving from airplanes are checked by sniffer dogs. According to dog handlers, it is almost impossible to deceive four-legged professionals. And they work quickly, without delaying baggage claim.

It is useless to camouflage the smell of drugs with some stronger odor or come up with some other tricks. The dog will still be interested in a bag that somehow stands out from the others, notes Igor Sidorov, an employee of the canine department of the Vnukovo customs.

The dog will detect even the smallest amount of a prohibited substance. Sidorov cited as an example a recent episode when a lighter with two grams of hashish was found in the luggage of one of the passengers. Then it turned out that the owner of the luggage was carrying another half kilogram in his stomach.

The main problem with border control is that it is impossible to thoroughly check all passengers arriving from abroad. This would take too much time and effort. Therefore, in the fight against smuggling, customs officers rely on information coming from domestic and foreign operational services and work closely with drug police.

There are, however, flights that are subject to virtually complete inspection due to the frequency of criminal episodes detected on them.

Dominican Republic and more

Gennady Barannikov told Lenta.ru that smugglers like to use new routes. It is difficult to say what exactly they are guided by. According to Barannikov, the flight from Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) to Moscow is a little over six months old, but it has already gained the notoriety of “cocaine”.

Thus, on November 8, 2014, a passenger on this flight, a Russian citizen, was found to have 291 grams of an elite drug. December 10 - 848 grams from another Russian. In both cases, the cocaine was transported in cigar tubes.

Photo: press service of Vnukovo customs

The most significant incident this year also involved passengers arriving from Punta Cana. In February, a group of citizens, absolutely openly, carried 15 kilograms of cocaine in a suitcase. They walked along the green corridor, smiling, singing and joking, says Barannikov.

Another time, they tried to smuggle cocaine in a sealed bottle of Dominican rum.

Flights from Tajikistan, Mexico and China are also subject to almost total inspection.

Heroin mainly comes from Dushanbe. From Mexico - cocaine, and from the Middle Kingdom - synthetic drugs and spice. In 2014, customs officers recorded seven attempts to smuggle drug shipments weighing more than 14.5 kilograms into Russia.

Photo: press service of Vnukovo customs

As Barannikov notes, no one brings drugs in small doses for personal use, for example, marijuana, from countries where its circulation is permitted. But the head of the postal customs post, Alexey Furletov, complains that Russian citizens sometimes encounter problems due to ignorance of the list of chemicals prohibited in our country.

Parcels with lights

A typical example is the purchase abroad of diet pills containing sibutramine, an anorexigenic drug that increases the feeling of fullness. Its circulation is prohibited in Russia.

You need to carefully familiarize yourself with the composition of medications purchased abroad. And take into account that the list of prohibited substances in Russia changes regularly. The same ephedrine, which 10 years ago was sold in any pharmacy here as a remedy for the common cold, is already on this list,” warns Furletov.

Photo: press service of Vnukovo customs

In 2014, 834 thousand international postal items were processed through Vnukovo customs. Drugs are also regularly found in parcels, from a variety of countries.

First, they launch in small batches, so to speak, break through the channel, and then increase the volumes,” explains Alexey Furletov.

Sometimes Russian law enforcement agencies, in cooperation with their foreign colleagues, conduct “controlled deliveries.”

Such events make it possible to identify and bring to justice the entire chain of drug network intermediaries. It happens that airport employees, as well as aircraft crews, enter into a criminal conspiracy.

Last year, 105 kilograms of “club” synthetic drugs disguised as rose fertilizer were discovered at a cargo station. The crew did this,” Furletov gives an example.

Let us also recall the note to Article 228 of the Criminal Code of Russia: a person who voluntarily gave out drugs and assisted the investigation is exempt from criminal liability, unless he decided to do this already during the arrest.

Moreover, as a study published in 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed, these capsules, despite their apparent primitiveness, are perhaps the best and safest method of smuggling. If you imagine a smuggler swallowing a regular condom filled with coke or heroin, then you are mistaken. The technology "is now well advanced, and the capsule production process is streamlined and even automated," the study states.
The capsules contain the drug itself—usually cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine—packed tightly in latex. The latex shell can be a regular condom or a balloon, it doesn’t matter. The capsule is then sealed using a wax shell or some industrial sealant. The package may also include aluminum foil or other material to make it difficult to detect by special devices. The result is a solid capsule, tapered at both ends.
As for the capacity, so to speak, of the smuggler’s physiological “container,” no one can say for sure. People are different, naturally, their physiological capabilities are also different. Usually a packer carries about 50-100 of these capsules, but there have also been “horses” caught with two hundred packages. Sometimes swallowing mules take anti-diarrheal drugs to prevent the body's urge to release the "cargo" and also do not eat anything during the flight. Flight attendants on long-haul international flights often take note of passengers who refuse to eat, handing them over to security upon landing.

In turn, airport security services are also vigilant about people who behave or look strange, for example, trembling, sweating profusely, or walking on weak legs. After all, despite the fact that it is relatively safe, it is still probably difficult to behave normally when you have a couple of hundred wax cylinders stuffed into you.
If there is any suspicion, an x-ray examination is performed. If the bags are detected, the packer will have a not entirely pleasant emptying experience. At John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, for example, this happens in a special “drug toilet” where the capsules are automatically washed.
However, despite all the improvements, the risk is still quite high. Any of these packages - and there can be dozens or even hundreds of them in the body - contains several times the dose of drug that is lethal for a person. So, the risk of death from an overdose is very high.

According to research, "swallowing" is one of the most fail-safe ways to smuggle large quantities of hard drugs into the United States. They are basically impossible to detect under standard airport security conditions, and the delivery itself costs pennies for the exporter (the services of swallowing mules cost them only a few thousand dollars, and sometimes just the cost of a plane ticket to the States).
***
“Stuffing”, “stuffing”, “minced meat”, “torpedo” - all these are names for the same process - the introduction of contraband goods directly into the rectum. This is a short term solution. Designed to pass just one quick check. The most common situation is delivering something prohibited to a prison or quickly hiding something illegal.

This method is initially unnatural, since the direction of movement of the contents is directly opposite to natural. The body resists in every possible way, so you can’t transport much this way. However, the rectum is a natural storage container. It is initially designed to store a certain amount of feces until the stretching of the walls of the rectum sends a message to the nervous system that it is time to get rid of the excess load.
The maximum capacity of a normal rectum - the value at which a person still overcomes the urge to defecate - is approximately 350 to 500 ml. The first urge to defecate occurs at approximately 100 ml. However, the rectum is a very elastic part of the body. As calculations carried out by the authors of the studies show, with practice and desire, up to 800 ml or, taking into account the density of cocaine hydrochloride, about 0.97 kg of cocaine can be transferred in this way. This is almost one of those packages that we see on the news about confiscated drugs. And even 800 ml is not the limit for those who regularly practice.

Cell phone in a prisoner's intestines. Sri Lanka (Daily Mail)