Defendant confirms drug trafficking charge in prison

The main defendant suspected of creating a drug trafficking plan inside Coimbra prison confirmed this Monday the facts present in the accusation, but denied that his wife, who is also a defendant, was involved in the scheme.

The Coimbra Court began this Monday to judge four inmates and the wife of one of the prisoners (who is on remand) and the father of another on suspicion of participating in a drug trafficking scheme within the prison , using sheets of paper with synthetic cannabinoids that were not detectable.

At the beginning of the trial, only the main defendant spoke and confirmed the facts present in the Public Prosecutor's Office's indictment, which note a plan, between November 2022 and April 2024, to introduce into the Coimbra Prison Establishment, MDMB, a synthetic cannabinoid that is impregnated in sheets of A4 paper, which would then be sold to inmates.

The defendant, who has been serving a sentence for counterfeiting currency since 2021, said that he started using the drug in prison, that he was unaware of “the strong power of this product” and admitted that he had become addicted, having joined other inmates to ensure its introduction into the prison, whether through the mail or visits.

However, if the Public Prosecutor's Office says that his wife was an active part in the trafficking plan into the prison, the defendant denied this version, stating that he had told his wife that the product was not illegal and that it was “less harmful than cannabis”.

“She ordered them at my request and kept buying them and I kept consuming more and more”, he said, mentioning that the number of sheets ordered varied, as did their frequency.

The defendant said that the sheets of paper were not only for him, but also for other inmates, saying that he could not name others who participated in the scheme.

The inmate's testimony, which he was speaking from a distance, ended up being interrupted due to the difficulty for the group of judges, lawyers and other defendants to hear his statements clearly, and his hearing was resumed on June 16, in person.

In the same session, a head of prison guards from Coimbra was heard, who noted that the phenomenon of paper drugs in prison began to emerge in 2019, after some episodes of inmates who had to be hospitalized after consuming that drug (which is inhaled after combustion).

According to the head of prison guards, over time, production “stopped being a homemade thing” — at first it was possible to identify stains on the leaves — and also began to have stronger effects on inmates.

“Things have gotten worse. Some people become aggressive when they consume it,” he noted, adding that there are more and more prisoners addicted to the product, which was initially offered free of charge.

In addition to the effects of the drug, the witness also noted that tensions and problems have also arisen due to the debts accumulated by consumers, clarifying that a whole sheet would be worth, initially, between three and five thousand euros.

Of the six defendants, four are serving prison sentences for various crimes.

According to the accusation to which the Lusa agency had access, that drug is easily concealed and undetectable by rapid testing.

The defendant's wife was allegedly responsible for contacting people in the UK to order the sheets of paper.