OREANDA-NEWS. June 23, 2008. According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the annual income from the illegal trade of tramadol in Ukraine is UAH 680 million (around USD 140,000).

SBU Acting Head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said at a briefing on Monday that from June 12, 2008, SBU officers had discovered and liquidated 87 centers for the illegal trade of this medicine, which was declared a drug in Ukraine on June 4. A total of 90 criminal cases were opened under SBU documents.

Kyiv stopped the activities of a pharmaceutical enterprise, which stored 2.76 million capsules of tramadol and over two tons of materials for its production. Centers for the illegal sale of tramadol were also liquidated in Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv and Luhansk.