Organised Crime officers coordinated by Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigation Department (DIICOT) prosecutors have dismantled in the last week five drug dealing networks in Bucharest, and 15 of their members have already been remanded. At the end of a three-month investigation, preventive arrest warrants were issued for the members of a heroin dealing group in Bucharest: ringleader V. Cristian (40), G. Albert (20) and V. Ionut (22), Mediafax reports. They were detained after police found about five grams of heroin, two grams of cocaine, a vehicle worth approximately EUR 30,000, an illegally owned gas-powered pistol and three unused gas cartridges, three mobile phones and four SIM cards at the suspects’ homes.

At the same time, at the end of last week a young man was caught selling four doses of heroin for RON 100. Investigators searched the suspect’s home, finding only a small quantity of heroin for personal consumption.

In a different case, narcotics officers identified nine members of a drug dealing group in Bucharest. During the weekend, police and gendarmes from the Special Intervention Brigade conducted seven simultaneous raids at suspects’ homes, seizing six grams of heroin, two grams of cocaine, 452 methadone pills, as well as RON 4,010 and EUR 1,900 that are thought to have been obtained from drug dealing.

Moreover, on Monday, police officers caught three people who were selling four doses of heroin for RON 200. In a different case, narcotics officers backed by members of the Quick Response team on Tuesday conducted three simultaneous raids at the homes of seven people suspected of selling and consuming high-risk drugs, and of forming an organised crime group.

25 people heard for card cloning

Drug dealing networks were not the only ones dismantled recently. Twenty-five people who are suspected of involvement in card cloning operations were heard yesterday by DIICOT prosecutors. The hearings followed 23 raids in Vaslui and Braila Counties as well as in Bucharest, police said, quoted by Mediafax.

The raids that took place yesterday morning were conducted by Organised Crime policemen in Iasi, Galati, Bacau, and by investigators from IPJ Iasi and Vaslui, coordinated by DIICOT Iasi prosecutors. The suspects are believed to have manufactured hardware devices used to fraudulently read confidential data from credit cards and to forge credit cards. The suspects had fitted their devices on ATMs both in Romania and abroad. Investigations will continue in order to prove the network’s entire criminal activity and to identify all its members.