Drugs cop in western Russia busted for growing marijuana at home & planting it on innocent citizen to boost his arrest numbers

The deputy head of a Russian city’s drugs control department has been arrested for growing cannabis and using it to stage the arrest of an innocent man in a fake possession case. The officer was trying to improve his arrest total.

On Saturday, in the city of Velikiye Luki, the cop was arrested after being accused of planting the substance on a local resident. With a population of 100,000 people, Velikiye Luki is the second-largest city in the Pskov Region, 150km from the border with Latvia.

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According to investigators, the suspect grew the plant to artificially improve his personal results in “identifying and suppressing drug crimes,” using the home-grown marijuana to stage an arrest. After the officer was detained, investigators found a second crop of cannabis. The senior policeman has been charged with abuse of office, and the illegal acquisition and storage of narcotics.

This is not the first time a Russian policeman has been charged with making their own drugs to improve numbers. In February, two senior officers in the city of Kostroma were convicted for busting their own drug den, where they had persuaded three Kostroma residents to prepare and use the drug called krokodil.

Earlier this year, five former policemen were charged in Moscow for planting drugs on well-known Russian investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, in the summer of 2019, after they claimed to have found the drug mephedrone in his backpack. He was released after protests and widespread support from the journalistic community.

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