LSD Purchase Went Bad: Three Arrested In Romania

Three suspects were arrested in Romania for ordering large amounts of LSD along with hash. The defendants allegedly used the dark web to place orders for the narcotics. Due to the large amounts of drugs, Romanian law enforcement authorities are suspecting that the trio sought to resell the substances to local customers.

According to a press release published by the Romanian police, law enforcement authorities arrested three suspects who allegedly bought 100 pieces of LSD blotters, which is considered as a high-risk drug in the country. The investigation revealed that the trio used darknet marketplaces to place orders for the illicit goods, which they bought from a narcotic vendor residing in the United Kingdom. Law enforcement authorities discovered the country of origin (the UK) of the drug shipment when they raided the apartments of the suspects. Soon after the defendants were placed into police custody, a local court issued a preventive detention for two of the three suspects.

The Directorate for Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) arrested the three suspects – Cristian Moldovan, Traian Cif and Alexandru Pol – in Târgu Mureş, Mureş, Romania on July 28. The defendants were arrested after investigators working with the local prosecutor’s office searched their homes and found 100 doses of LSD ordered from the dark web, as well as 20 grams of hashish, grinders and other drug equipment.

“There is a reasonable suspicion that a package containing 100 LSD stamps, high-risk drugs, which were ordered via the dark web, was dispatched from the UK in July 2017,” the DIICOT wrote in a press release announcing the arrest of the suspects.

Traian Cif’s and Alexandru Pol’s preventive detention was requested by the prosecutor’s office. After the approval, the court issued two arrest warrants for 30 days for the suspects. After being detained for 24 hours, Cristian Moldovan was placed under judicial control for a period of 15 days by the prosecutor’s office.

The action was supported by the specialized support of the Special Operations Directorate. In addition, gendarmes from the “King Ferdinand I” Mobile Gendarmerie Group also took part in the arrest of the suspects.

Law enforcement authorities did not detail the methods they used to identify and arrest the three suspects. As the Hansa Market was taken down after law enforcement authorities conducted a successful honeypot operation, both the Europol, the Dutch National Police and the U.S. Department of Justice announced that investigators managed to identify 10,000 foreign addresses belonging to Hansa users. There is no official confirmation in the case, however, it is possible that the three arrested suspects in Romania were past Hansa customers who were unmasked during the honeypot operation. At the time when law enforcement authorities announced the takedown of both Hansa and AlphaBay, police reported that the 10,000 foreign addresses were transferred to the Europol. In such cases, the European law enforcement agency alerts the national police of the country where an illicit package is arriving, which often results in the arrest of the suspects.