Ads for narcotic drugs published most often on VK and Twitter social networks - Russian Interior Ministry

MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax) - Ads for narcotic drugs and links to websites selling drugs can most frequently be found on the VK and Twitter social media networks, but drug dealers have begun offering their merchandise on messengers increasingly more often, Dmitry Sapegin, deputy head of the Russian Interior Ministry's department for the fight against drug-related crimes using information technologies, said.

"As regards social media platforms, criminals have been using the VK social network as a universal platform for selling drugs. Under the guise of posts and comments in various groups on VK, they publish advertisements offering banned substances, as well as links to platforms selling them. Twitter holds second place among social media platforms in terms of the amount of drug-related content being spread there," Sapegin said in an interview with the Militseiskaya Volna radio station.

Drug dealers also publish ads on Instagram, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, and YouTube, he said.

"At the same time, messengers are also growing ever more popular among drug dealers, increasingly becoming the main resources for spreading drugs," Sapegin said.

More than 70,000 people were prosecuted by the Interior Ministry in January-September of this year for committing drug-related crimes with the use of information technologies, he said.