14 DAY TRIAL // Finland's Customs officials have arrested three suspects, two men and a woman, for smuggling drugs into the country. This group was believed to have gotten their start by operating via Silk Road, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reports.
The suspects, all 30 years old and living in the Helsinki metropolitan area, are said to have originally started their drug business by setting up an account on Silk Road, a cyber-crime marketplace that operated between 2011 and 2013 on the TOR anonymous network.
It appears that, following Silk Road's demise, the trio remained in business and created one of the biggest drug cartels in Finland.
Finnish customs said that, in the past two years, the group smuggled over 10 million doses of drugs, such as 40 kilos of powdered drugs, 40,000 pills of ecstasy, and 30,000 LSD tabs, and more. Among powdered drugs, the group smuggled amphetamines, methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, MDMA powder, alpha-PVP, and MDPV.
All drugs were brought in from Germany and the Netherlands from 2014 to 2016. The country's customs head described the group's operation as professional.
Authorities arrested the three crossing the border with over 15 kilos of drugs with a street value of over €1.1 million ($1.23 million), which is also the biggest drug bust in Finland's history.
In April, customs arrested the trio, who have been held in prison ever since. As an out-of-the-ordinary fact from the investigation, the trio used a birdhouse in the woods to store and conceal their drugs.
