Former Lithuanian police officer jailed for 10 years over drug offences

A court in Klaipėda has sentenced a former police officer to 10 years in prison for possessing and transporting very large quantities of narcotic and psychotropic substances, the Prosecutor General’s Office said, according to LRT.

According to the case file, the officer, who was 30 at the time, was stopped by police in May last year while driving an Audi from Vilnius to Klaipėda district. Officers found 165 grams of drugs, including the psychotropic substances 3-CMC, MDMA and 4-BMC, as well as cannabis.

Investigators also searched another car belonging to the man, a BMW, and found powder containing 3-CMC inside.

In setting the sentence, the Klaipėda Regional Court considered the man’s character and the seriousness of the offence. It noted that he had been a long-serving police officer responsible for preventing and investigating crime, and that 3-CMC and 4-BMC are new synthetic psychotropic substances that pose a serious threat to human health.

The court said the former officer admitted buying drugs several times, most recently when police detained him. Information recovered from his mobile phone indicated that he may have distributed drugs to others for payment, the court said. It also found that his actions had damaged the police force’s reputation and public trust in officers.

The verdict can be appealed to the Court of Appeal of Lithuania.