Estonian customs finds new drugs in incoming parcels

Estonia’s Tax and Customs Board has detected several new narcotic and psychotropic substances in parcels arriving in the country, ERR reported.

The agency recorded 381 violations involving narcotic or psychotropic substances last year and 222 in the first half of this year, said Vitali Zajarin, head of the board’s narcotics unit.

Zajarin said the continued emergence of new psychoactive substances was a significant change. He added that the figures alone did not show whether drug orders had increased or decreased, because the number of detected violations also depends on where and how extensively controls are targeted.

“Postal and courier shipments continue to be widely used to send narcotic substances to Estonia, and the growth in the overall volume of shipments is making this channel increasingly important to control,” Zajarin said.

He said drug sales and orders had increasingly moved online across Europe. In addition to the dark web, sellers use the regular internet, social media and messaging applications.

Most parcels come from the Netherlands and Czechia

Based on the Tax and Customs Board’s detection data from this year and last year, narcotic and psychotropic substances were most often found in parcels sent from Czechia, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland and Spain.

Czechia and the Netherlands stood out, accounting together for about 54 percent of the cases detected during the period, Zajarin said.

He cautioned that the data should be interpreted carefully. The country of dispatch shows where a specific parcel was sent to Estonia, but not necessarily the actual origin of the substance.

“In modern international logistics, parcels can move through several countries and distribution centres,” Zajarin said.

Postal and courier shipments are checked on the basis of risk assessments, with controls directed towards shipments where available information indicates a higher probability of a violation. The methods and risk assessments are continuously updated in response to changes in shipment volumes, logistics and the drug market, he said.

Online sales play a prominent role

The Tax and Customs Board has found that parcels containing narcotic and psychotropic substances are ordered from online sellers and also sent between private individuals. It is not always possible to determine from a parcel how the substance was obtained, but the role of online sales channels is clear, Zajarin said.

The agency has detected electronic cigarettes, gummy sweets and similar products ordered from foreign online shops. Sellers advertise them as legal products, but they contain substances classified as narcotics in Estonia.

Zajarin warned that people ordering products containing various cannabinoids from online shops or other web-based sales platforms should bear in mind that the legal status of substances may differ from one country to another.

“What is permitted in Czechia, for example, may not be permitted in Estonia. Therefore, people should not rely solely on an online shop’s claim that a product is legal or permitted throughout the European Union,” he said.