Odesa woman detained in Bali with designer drugs

Indonesian law enforcement officers detained a 21-year-old Ukrainian woman at the airport on the island of Bali with four kilograms of the drug 4-CMC.

According to representatives of the Ukrainians in Bali community, the girl is from Odesa.

4-CMC is a so-called designer drug, one that is developed to circumvent laws and distributed either as legal drugs or as research chemicals or bath salts.

The community also said that the girl admitted to transporting the drugs for distribution in Bali, targeting tourists in entertainment venues. She acted on the instructions of contacts abroad, so the Indonesian authorities are coordinating with Interpol to track the network.

Under the drug law in force in Indonesia, the girl faces the maximum penalty of death by firing squad or life imprisonment. However, as noted in the community, more often the courts are limited to imprisonment for 12-20 years.

Intent asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for a comment, but it has not yet responded.

This is not the first time that Ukrainians have been involved in stories accusing them of drug trafficking or drug transportation. In 2020, Ukrainian Daria Shygayeva was arrested in Bali on suspicion of drug possession. The police claimed to have found marijuana on her, but the Ukrainian woman herself claimed that it was homemade pastille sent to her from home. After six days in jail, the woman was eventually released.

Meanwhile, on August 12, Odesa law enforcement officers reported that they had detained an 18-year-old resident of Odesa on suspicion of complicity in an organized group that was involved in the distribution of drugs at home. Investigators claim that the detainee is a member of a criminal group that provided drugs and psychotropics to residents of Odesa. To deliver drugs to customers, he used the services of a logistics company and made so-called "bookmarks," i.e. left drugs in some agreed place or reported such a place later.

Кирило Бойко