The case of the Soviet drug cartels
Militia alternative
Ask anyone who considers himself an expert. stories of our country, as far as drug abuse was widespread in the USSR. The answer will depend on where exactly this person or his relatives lived, on whose stories his ideas about the Soviet past are based. People from central Russia, with foaming at the mouth, will argue that drug addiction did not exist in the Soviet Union. Residents of large cities and southern regions of the RSFSR will surely remember cases when someone from their circle got carried away with drugs and, as it was said then, rolled down the sloping one. And residents of the most southern and eastern parts of the country, if they wish, can tell a lot about the extent of drug use in Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev times. And they will be absolutely right. After all, the same USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs was repeatedly reported to the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers.
Periodically, this phenomenon reached a serious scale, and the proposals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs became more concrete and persistent. For example, in March 1956, the Minister of Internal Affairs N. P. Dudorov sent to the USSR Council of Ministers proposals on reducing the spread of drug addiction and drug trafficking:
"In the districts of the Kirghiz and Kazakh SSR, a number of collective farms are engaged in the cultivation of opium poppy in order to obtain raw opium from it for the needs of the pharmaceutical industry.
Taking advantage of the fact that some of the population of the Central Asian republics and the Far East are engaged in opi-smoking, the criminal element plunders valuable medicinal raw materials used to obtain morphine and other alkaloids, and resells it to opio-smokers. In the 1954 year, for these crimes, the police forces of the Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Turkmen, Uzbek, and Tajik SSR brought 244 a robber and a speculator to criminal responsibility and seized 352 of a kilogram of raw opium from them. In 1955, the same police bodies prosecuted 290 plunderers and speculators from whom 680 kilograms of raw opium were seized.
Criminal investigations conducted by the police on these individuals showed that opium is abducted mainly on collective farms that cultivate the opium poppy, and this embezzlement is favored by the method of opium harvest on the collective farms.
During the harvesting period, around 25 thousands of collectors go to the fields of opium poppy ... It has been established that the embezzlement of opium takes place, as a rule, during the collection, as well as during the transportation of raw opium from the fields to reception centers. Separate receivers of Glavlektrest points of the USSR Ministry of Health are also involved in opium thefts.
The robbed opium robbers sell visitors to speculators at 800-1000 rubles per kilogram, and the latter sell them to drug users on 8000-25000 rubles per kilogram. "
Dudorov believed that the most correct and radical way to combat the spread of drugs could be to abandon the cultivation of opium poppy. And with the replacement, allowing not to reduce the production of morphine for the needs of pharmacology:
“An analysis of the materials available to the police shows that it is necessary to consider the question of how appropriate it is to grow opium poppy in the USSR and whether it is not timely to sow an olive poppy instead, for example, the K-198 Novelty variety, bred by the Ukrainian Zonal Selection Station. The heads, as well as in the stems of this poppy, contain up to 0,5% morphine.
The technological process of obtaining morphine from the pods and stalks of oilseed poppy was developed by the Kharkiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Sergo Ordzhonikidze and practically mastered the Kharkov factory "Workers' Health" and the Chimkent plant of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. According to this institute, morphine derived from oilseed poppy is not inferior in its qualities to morphine from opium poppy. According to experts of this institute, the organization of mass production of morphine from oilseed poppy is quite expedient and does not require large capital expenditures. For the manufacture of some special medicinal preparations, only a small amount of opium poppy crops should be retained.
Unlike opium, oilseed poppy can be harvested using machines, and after threshing and obtaining poppy seeds, the boxes and stalks can be pressed into bales and transported to plants that produce morphine.
The experience of the Hungarian and Polish People's Republics confirms the feasibility of growing oilseed, rather than opium poppy. In the Hungarian People's Republic, the production of morphine from oilseed poppy has already been launched, and the republic currently not only provides itself with morphine, but also exports it.
The use of oil poppy for the production of morphine and other alkaloids will make it possible to reduce to a minimum the crops of opium poppy and to free up a significant number of collective farmers, who are now engaged in collecting raw opium, for other work in collective farm production; almost completely stop the embezzlement and speculation of the raw opium, and to a certain extent limit opium smoking in some parts of the country.
Based on the above, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs requests to consider the issue of transferring morphine production to raw materials from oil poppy, as well as a corresponding reduction in opium poppy crops. "
The government approved the initiative and instructed the Ministries of Health and Agriculture of the USSR to consider the possibility of implementing the proposal together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, the result was completely unexpected.
Strange effect
The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture perfectly understood the importance of the problem and expressed their readiness to meet the proposals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, the period of transition to new technologies for the production of morphine somehow was transferred by itself, for no apparent reason. In the meantime, drug consumption has increased rapidly, which was evident at least by a significant increase - by more than a third compared with the previous year - of the volume of raw opium seized. The main police department reported to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs:
"The police, by combating drug thieves and drug speculators, brought 1956 people to criminal responsibility in 620. Criminals found and seized: raw opium 916 kg, cannons 724 kg and koknar more than 3 tons."
The increase in drug trafficking was due only to domestic causes, since the smuggling of illicit substances from abroad, primarily from Afghanistan, as in 1930-1940's, was not recorded in 1956 in the year:
"No cases of smuggling and export of drugs into 1956 by the police have been registered. According to the Chief of the Main Customs Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade, Mr. Morozov (tel.B8-70-06) year through the customs institutions was not observed. "
It was necessary to immediately analyze the situation and find additional ways to combat the spread of drugs. To this end, the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered to convene a meeting of the heads of departments for combating the embezzlement of socialist property (OBKSS) of the Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan in 15-16 on August 1957 in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Frunze. It was in these regions that the most drugs were produced and consumed, and OBKHSS was then responsible for combating this phenomenon.
The very first report at the meeting, which was made by the head of the Department of Military Security and Aviation of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kyrgyz SSR, Police Colonel Fefilov, gave food for thought. Fefilov said that due to the climate peculiarities of the Issyk-Kul region of Kyrgyzstan, it is there that raw opium is produced in significant volumes, and the sown area and harvest only grow from year to year:
“In 1956, the opium poppy plan was 6700 hectares, 107 tons of raw opium was planned, 151,7 tons actually harvested, or 141% was planned. In 1957, the plan was planned and 7942 tons of opium actually planted This year, the harvest is no worse than last year’s, so one must assume that the plan for collecting opium will be exceeded. ”
However, the more raw opium is produced, the more it is abducted and the more opportunities drug dealers get. And there are a lot of ways to steal the opium crop, as reported by Colonel Fefilov:
"In many collective farms, opium was transported to whatever it took: barrels, buckets, basins, pots, etc., unsealed, resulting in excellent conditions for theft during transportation, and we have many facts when carters at the time of delivery is not enough for 2-x kg. of opium. "
As a rule, carters were not wisely sly: instead of the stolen raw opium, they topped up the tank with water to the same level. They didn’t notice anything at the reception points, primarily because they also stole valuable raw materials. Fefilov reported:
“Many collective farms do not have weights and weights adapted for receiving opium, they often use rusty, old and non-branded weights, and instead of weights stones, bolts, nuts, loose change and other objects. As a result, favorable conditions are created for hanging farmers; there is a creation of reserves for theft. "
To the surprise of the police, many kolkhozes did not protect poppy plantations, and therefore work was in full swing at night: they collected and exported raw opium. At the same time, the head of the Kyrgyz OBKhSS noted one strange circumstance:
"In certain collective farms, convicted persons, minors, the elderly and occasional people are allowed to be carriers and carriers."
And despite the insistent requests of the police, the management of the collective farms sent to the poppy fields of those who had previously been convicted of stealing drug-containing raw materials:
"The practice of the militia of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kirghiz SSR in the fight against opium plunderers shows that the same people, as a rule, are engaged in theft, in the past, convicted of theft and speculation of narcotic substances. In this regard I will give several examples:
The Department of Internal Affairs of the Issyk-Kul region in 1956 recommended that the board of the Molotov collective farm be removed from management by the link of Moldotashev who was convicted of theft of opium.
Moldotashev not only was not removed from the line-up, but was appointed as a foreman. After a short time during the harvest, he was detained with 2 kgr. stolen opium.
In the 1956 year, his wife was twice convicted for speculating with opium Lirova Bova and was allowed to collect opium. With the help of his wife, Lirov bought 21 kgr. stolen opium and tried to take him to the city of Tashkent, was arrested and brought to justice.
At the end of July of this year, the collective farmers of the Kolkhoz Eriktu Tyupsky district of the Issyk-Kul oblast, Cherikbaev’s husband and wife, were detained with 170 grams of the stolen opium of a new crop. Cherikbayev was convicted three times for stealing opium, a total of 17 years was serving his sentence, but he was again allowed to work. "
Strong network
The impression that the strange behavior of collective farm managers and mass embezzlements was only one link in a large criminal chain was reinforced by the description of the extensive network of buying and selling raw opium, which Colonel Fefilov made in his report:
"In the production of the police bodies of the Republican Obkhss Service of the Republic, Frunze, Issyk-Kul, Tien Shan regions and the linear police station of Pishpek station there are 12 undercover and 13 accounting cases in which large speculators of narcotic substances pass 70. Besides, it is listed on the list convicted in the past for embezzlement and speculation and 230 people passing through the primary data. What is the peculiarity of the fight against this category of criminals? This feature arises from the deep conspiracy of the criminal activities of the speculators in narcotic substances ... The peculiarity lies in the fact that opium speculators, acting through trusted connections and relatives, as a rule, do not give testimony to their accomplices and act through third parties. "
As an example, the Gaivoronsky family was cited, which the police did not manage to expose for years:
"All relatives of the Gaivorons are opium speculators, they do not engage in useful labor, lead a parasitic way of life, the more active of them - the two brothers and the wife of the smaller brother were worked out on the agent business" Remains. "
For a long time we could not let down the agents for the development of this family, because, apart from relatives, they did not trust anyone.
Quite by chance, with the help of collective farmers in 1955, one of the brothers, Mikhail Gaivoronsky with 6 kgr, was detained. opium, a pistol and a dagger were taken away from him when he was detained ... Of course, this tried criminal did not give any testimony to his relatives, and the case ended up being prosecuted, they gave 15 years of imprisonment, and he is now serving punishment. Left free, his wife and brother continued speculation on opium.
Only this year, thanks to the skillful supply of the agent "Krasnova" to the development of the wife of Gaivoronsky, 5,5 kgr was found in her apartment. opium, for which she was prosecuted and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Gayvoronsky's elder brother, Fyodor Andreevich Gaivoronsky, who is being developed by us in accounting, remained at large.
Thus, due to speculators' kinship ties, we have not been able to expose this whole gang of criminals for a long time. "
Fefilov reported that there is another category of elusive drug traffickers:
“Take, for example, the case of a large speculator Sturov Dmitry Stepanovich. Sturov had been engaged in opium speculation for more than ten years, and he did this through third parties. Opium itself did not purchase, transport or resell, all were done on the instructions of its accomplices. the head of one of the mesas. Rybachye. "
Deep conspiracy was observed in the organization of opium caches:
"In the practice of work, we came across such facts when opium was found lowered on a rope in a well, hidden under bridges, buried in vegetable gardens, in manure, tied to a leg and in artificial limbs, etc.".
Another feature of the networks of buying and selling raw opium, according to the head of the Kyrgyz Obkhss, was the method of additional purchase of goods:
"In the practice of work, we are confronted with such facts, when certain large opium speculators are linked to criminal elements and pushing them to rob warehouses in order to purchase stolen opium at low prices.
4 August 1956 of the year 21 kgr was stolen by digging the walls of the warehouse of the Kochkor branch of "Lestrastrest". 500 gr. raw opium.
In order to solve the crime, officers from the ESD and OBKHSS of the Republican Police Department were seconded to the scene.
Upon arrival at the site, police officers obtained intelligence data, giving grounds to suspect that a mountain resident was stealing opium. Ledenev Alexander Maksimovich’s fishermen, repeatedly convicted of theft, who has close ties with opium speculators Polina Ivanovna Smogorzhevskaya and Dmitry Sturov.
To clarify the primary data and full exposure of a group of criminals from the police department of the Issyk-Kul region was called to the mountains. Fishing experienced agent "Crimean".
As a result of the skillful supply of "Krymsky" to Ledenev, the latter, while drinking, told the agent that he had committed the theft of opium with his friend named Nikolay, who worked at the Kok-Moinok state farm on a power-saw bench.
Nikolai was quickly installed, secretly removed. During the interrogation, he said that he was Tulikov Nikolai Stepanovich, 1905 of birth, repeatedly tried for theft, and that they stole opium together with Ledenev on the instructions of the speculator Smogorzhevskaya P.I. After that Ledenev was arrested, who confirmed the testimony of Tulikov and also showed that they stole opium on Smogorzhevskaya’s order, which promised to pay them 750 rubles per kilogram.
17 kgr was found and seized by the search of Tulikov’s apartment. stolen opium.
Thus, opium was found and Ledenyov and Tulikov were prosecuted, and Smogorzhevskaya hid from arrest. "
Durushnoy agents
In most other cases, as in the case of a warehouse robbery, information about the actions of drug traffickers and the evidence of their crimes was obtained mainly with the help of agents. In the 1957 year, the turn of the elusive Sturov came after one of his drivers got drunk hooliganism and, in order not to go to jail, agreed to work for the police. Fefilov told:
“This year we managed to expose him only because we successfully recruited agent Krasnov for the development of other objects. Sturov knew Krasnov as an opium carrier, was familiar with him.
At the same time, Sturov asked Krasnov to translate 3 kgr for him. opium, according to our task, Krasnov agreed to this.
Arrangements were made to detain Sturov at the moment when he would bring opium into the canteen in a bank specially adapted for this purpose, and they staged this detention as accidental.
At the moment when Sturov from the car brought opium into the canteen, he was detained, 2,5 kgr was found on him. opium. Krasnov was given the task of demonstrating to Sturov that he had seen him being detained, and then take the car and leave.
On the second day on our assignment, “Krasnov” appeared to Sturov's wife, spoke about everything he had seen, and added that, probably, if he were quickly out of the mountains. The fishermen did not leave, they would have arrested him too.
At the first meeting with her husband, Sturova told about the conversation she had with Krasnov about the arrest, so Krasnov remained beyond suspicion. ”
However, not always the undercover work resulted in the arrest of suspected drug dealers. Sometimes, as the head of the Kyrgyz OBKHSS reported, the agents began to play their own game:
"The behavior of the former agent" Borodina "is characteristic in this respect.
In 1954, the citizen Chernysheva came to the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kirghiz SSR and said that she not only breaks with the past, but is also ready to assist the police in exposing opium speculators.
In order to gain more confidence in the police, Chernysheva presented a number of valuable materials and helped expose speculator Dronov, from whom 11 kgr was seized. opium.
Based on these materials, Chernysheva was recruited. After a short time, she began to get involved with large speculators and participate in optic procurement and sale operations, carefully hiding her criminal activities from the police.
The Issyk-Kul police department developed an opium speculator Vlasov, with whom Chernyshev had a connection in the past to buy opium.
Given this circumstance, she was sent to the town of Przhevalsk in order to find out all the links of Vlasov.
In order to verify the behavior of the agent, "n / n" was organized behind it (external surveillance. - "Money").
During the events, it turned out that Chernysheva, on her own initiative, had introduced Vlasov to speculator Grigoriev, who had arrived to purchase opium in the city of Przhevalsk.
Helped them buy 10 kgr. opium, and intended to take him to the city of Tashkent, but we along the way Grigoriev with opium was detained. Thus, Chernysheva was exposed in fraud and expelled from the network. "
The story with one more agent turned out to be no less significant:
“In the police department of the Frunze region, an agent of“ Lapina ”was in the network, who, under the cover of the police, tried to blackmail the opiates.
Once, having learned about the availability of opium from citizen Volkova, she offered her services to help sell this opium, to which Volkova agreed.
With the help of Lapina, Volkova agreed to sell her opium to one of the speculators.
At the same time, “Lapina” agreed with one of the criminal offenders to rob them while they were returning after selling opium with money, for which half of this amount “Lapina” had uttered for themselves.
At the agreed time, when Volkov and Lapin returned with money, they were robbed, and Volkov, due to the fact that the money was obtained for the sale of opium, did not go and report it to the police. "
Reliable "roof"
Another remarkable circumstance also hindered the fight against drug trafficking. As soon as the investigators focused on combating the theft and resale of opium, the drug dealers, as if they knew about it, switched to anasha. Colonel Fefilov reported:
"Besides opium, another kind of narcotic substance is spread in the Kirghiz SSR - this is an anasha.
Indian hemp, from which anasha is made, is grown on collective and state farms of the Frunze region and illegally by collective farmers and private individuals in the Jalal-Abad and Osh regions.
Anya is particularly dangerous in the sense that students are fond of smoking.
Frankly, before 1957, we did not pay enough attention to the fight against anasha’s speculation, and only after we were convinced that the smoking of cannabis had spread to schools, even because of this, classes were broken in separate classes, were measures taken in this direction .
For this type of crime in 1957, we brought to justice 11 people who have been deprived of 221 kgr. anasha. "
After such a story, it inevitably gave the impression that not only collective farmers, plunderers and heads of collective farms, but also law enforcement officers were involved in the network of drug dealers. Fefilov gave an example:
"In January, 1956 was sent to Frunze with a routing agent, an officer of the OBKhSS, the UM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukr. SSR, Comrade Mutalov, who said that the purpose of his trip was to find out if some speculators had any opium. intend to sell it. After the agent, who arrived with Comrade Mutalov, was accidentally detained at Pishpek station by workers of the line department with opium, it turned out that Comrade Mutalov was sent to take a large amount of opium from Kyrgyzstan. "
No less surprising was the indifferent attitude to the problem of drug addiction of Soviet and party leaders. As reported by Fefilov, the police repeatedly reported on embezzlement on collective farms and at reception points to the republican leadership:
"What measures are we taking to close the theft channels?"
Periodically presented to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan, the Council of Ministers of the Kirghiz SSR reports on the activities carried out by the police in combating the embezzlement and speculation of opium with proposals to eliminate the conditions conducive to embezzlement and speculation.
This year a report was presented with a draft decree of the Council of Ministers on this issue. "
However, as a result, only Komsomol raids were conducted on poppy fields and collective farms were allocated new scales, so that the receivers did not weigh the opium collectors. Such a position, given that the opium poppy crops have expanded, could be explained by concerns about the implementation of the plan, the presence of more important problems. And it could also be due to the fact that one of the high-ranking managers was vitally interested in the growth of income from the drug trade. Be that as it may, in subsequent years, the Main Police Directorate continued to report to the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs:
"From the materials of the investigation of criminal cases it is clear that the embezzlement of opium is still committed during its collection on collective farm plantations mainly in the Issyk-Kul and Tien Shan regions of the Kyrgyz SSR, partly in the Taldy-Kurgan, Semipalatinsk and Alma-Ata regions of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republics, as well as at Lekrarestrest's processing centers and at factories that process this type of drugs. Criminals seize opium usually to speculators, and these in turn to drug addicts in Ashgabat, Mary, Bairam-Ali, Turkmen SSR, Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Khorezm of the Uzbek SSR and in selected cities of the Russian Federation. "
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