‘The work of all [drug] prevention entities is bearing fruit,’ proclaimed Lidskaya Gazeta, a media outlet run by the Belarusian state, on 20 August 2024. In an upbeat article, it heralded a decline in drug offences and lauded efforts by the law enforcement authorities to tackle drug trafficking.     

Earlier that month, Belarus had taken steps to reform the criminal justice framework for dealing with drug crime. On 8 August, the president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, submitted to parliament an amendment bill on the codes on criminal liability, which sought to reduce the punishments for drug offences, which, under the act, provided for sentences of up to five years for possession and up to 25 for more serious offences. Now, under the proposed law – which passed its first reading in September – possession in certain cases could be punished without imprisonment, a move towards a more reformist sentencing regime that appears to follow the trend seen in several Western European countries. 

Offences down, seizures up? 

On the face of it, the media announcement and the bill would appear to suggest that Belarus is trending in the right direction when it comes to tackling drugs. In raw numbers, the country has witnessed a broadly declining number of drug offences since 2014, when Lukashenko enacted a much harsher anti-drugs regime. This trend continued into the first half of 2024, with drug crimes down by 14.3%, according to a copy of a leaked official document seen by the GI-TOC.   

But there is good reason to be cautious about the statistics. The 2014 law put a greater focus on possession, with no distinction made between different categories or quantities of drugs – an approach that has been criticized by international observers and Belarusian civil society representatives as targeting young users. One estimate assessed that up to 10 000 people may have been imprisoned for possession between 2015 and 2023. The criteria for one form of trafficking – which carried a heavier sentence than possession – was based on simply sharing drugs. In that light, the statistics regarding possession may be misleading as to Belarus’s actual success tackling drug trafficking as an illicit industry.  

Seizure data also tells a different story. Although a complicated measure of drug trafficking activity, it is notable that the first five months of 2023 saw an eightfold increase in seizures compared to the whole of 2022, making the 37% decline seen in the first six months of 2024 relatively modest. According to the leaked internal document, Belarus has been experiencing a continued rise in synthetic drug trafficking, especially in methadone, mephedrone, Alpha-PvP and 4-SMS (the latter of which was first detected in 2023). As is the case in Ukraine and Russia, the trade in synthetic drugs has been driven by the dark web and Telegram, with more than 90% of drug sales conducted online, according to the leaked document. The document cites 859 criminal cases initiated against ‘online drug traffickers’ – a 233% increase on the same period in 2023. This online market was formerly dominated by an organized crime group known as Scorpion, which before a 2023 crackdown had a 90% share of the Belarusian drug market.  Recently, there have been signs that the group may still be active. 

According to investigative organization Belpol, Russia is the main supplier of drugs in Belarus, with 14 interceptions in Belarus of drugs originating from Russia in the first half of 2024, out of 17 cases in all. Of the three drug laboratories liquidated in joint operations between Belarus and Russia in the first half of 2024, two of them were in Russia.  

Seizures in 2023 and 2024 also suggest a brisk trade in trafficking drugs from Europe to Russia (although Belarusian state media also has an interest in amplifying these stories over drug flows in the reverse direction into Europe). In July 2024, for example, almost 706 kilograms of 4-SMS were seized that had originated in the European Union and were destined for Russia. Poland and Lithuania are the key gateways, judging from the leaked document. Sophisticated concealment techniques were used, including masking the scent of drugs with pepper and using several couriers to prevent the ringleaders from being traced if a courier is intercepted, as they will only know the preceding and succeeding parts of the supply chain.  

Reading between the data 

This evidence of systematic and large-scale trafficking into and within Belarus casts doubt on the thesis that Belarus’s drug strategy is genuinely working. Official statistics may point to a decline in the number of drug offences, but the signs of a vibrant domestic market are visible on the streets: almost 2 200 displays of graffiti or similar brazen advertisements for online drug markets where users can buy drugs from dark web shops or Telegram channels were removed from public places in the first half of 2024, according to the internal document.  

It is conceivable that consumption has been suppressed to some degree by the effects of Belarus’s draconian approach in the decade between 2014 and 2024. But it may also be that the drop in convictions merely reflects a shift towards a more anonymized, contact-free model of dark-web drug sales, as examined in a recent GI-TOC report, which makes arrests for possession more challenging. 

It is also evident that Belarus has become a more significant transit gateway between Russia and Europe, in part replacing Ukraine as an illicit drugs waystation because of the impact of the conflict. Tackling this challenge will require another fundamental rethink of Belarus’s drug policy, as happened in 2014 – except this time, organized crime, and not people who use drugs, must be the real target.