Police Detains People Transporting Drugs via Emergency Car
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, April 2
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia announced on Friday about the detention of a Irakli Koridze, who served as an acting head of an emergency service and allegedly imported especially large amount of drugs from Turkey to Georgia via an emergency car.
The ministry reported that 900 pills of Buprenorphine were brought to Georgia in January 2018 under the leadership of an individual only identified as I. K.
Later it became known that the individual is Irakli Koridze, who replaced his father as the director of an emergency service transporting people with health issues from Georgia to foreign countries.
Police stated that Koridze sent one of his accomplices to Turkey to buy the drugs.
When the drugs were purchased he sent another accomplice and a fake patient with a doctor and a nurse to Turkey to import the drugs to Georgia.
However, the vehicle broke down on the road and Korodze had to send another emergency car and the drugs were finally imported with the vehicle in January.
The Interior Ministry stated that one of the accomplices who brought the drugs from Turkey has already been sentenced to 7 years in prison, while the dealer and the individual who purchased the drugs have been charged with organized crime.
The individual who purchased the drugs under the leadership of Koridze was sent to prison last year for another drug-related crime for eight years.
The individual is Giorgi Giorganashvili, famous Georgian anchor nicknamed Bakhala, who claimed during trials that police planted drugs on him.
After the new charge, his term in prison is expected to increase.
The opposition-minded Rustavi 2 private broadcaster claimed that Koridze was previously sentenced for drug-related crimes and was released as a “political prisoner” by the Georgian Dream leadership in 2012.
Eka Beselia, from the Georgian Dream, refused such a fact and said that Koridze was released in 2014. She did not say why and how the individual was released.
However, a source told the Messenger that Koridze is a relative of President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s wife and he was pardoned by the president in 2014.
