Officers of the Federal Drug Control Service in Russia's Vologda region stole money and marijuana from suspects during searches, the local branch of the Investigative Committee said on Wednesday.
Last April, two unnamed officers took 300,000 rubles ($11,000) from a suspect’s wardrobe, the Committee said in a report. They initially split the money between themselves, but were later forced to hand over a combined 100,000 rubles to two of their superiors.
In October, the pair found marijuana at an apartment in the city of Cherepovets in northern Russia. But instead of processing the case, they just took “three glasses” of the illegal drug for themselves, and also stole 42,000 rubles from the suspect, the investigators said.
The drugs were later illegally planted on another Cherepovets resident, apparently in order to extort a bribe from him, the report said.
The Cherepovets drug police's offenses ended in November after armed police commandos dispatched from St. Petersburg stormed their office. The head of the city’s drug police and two others were arrested on charges of running a protection racket for local drug dealers.
The accused face a combined 15 years in prison over the charges.
