Six people have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling doping substances into Finland on board the Repin express train operating between St. Petersburg and Helsinki. The same group is also suspected of selling the dope in Finland.
Two of the coach attendants of the Repin train were among those arrested. The other four taken into custody are Finns and Russians living in Finland.
The news of the smuggling was published in the Etelä-Saimaa daily on Thursday.
The Customs had planned to announce the incident on Monday, after having examined in detail the scale of the haul.
Preliminary investigations are still in progress, but already now this is believed to be Finland's largest confiscation of sports doping substances in recent years. According to Customs Senior Inspector Olli Aalto, the smuggling seems to have continued for a few months this spring.
"We are not talking about years of smuggling here", Aalto explains.
The coach attendants were apprehended on April 9th, whereas some of the other suspects had already been arrested earlier.
According to Customs sources, around ten people in all have been involved in the operation. Some of them are still at large and have not been questioned yet.
The coach attendants are believed to have smuggled the dope into Finland, where the rest of the gang took care of the distribution. The case does not involve drugs other than doping substances such as steroids and growth hormones.
