It was in March this year that police saw a 27-year-old man mail suspicious envelopes in a mailbox in Malmö.

The man is from an Asian country and came to Sweden just four months earlier, to work on packing and sending pregabalin to customers. He says he had got the job in the belief that it was about the packaging of legal drugs. According to the man, the salary should have been equivalent to SEK 18,000.

Apartment in central Malmö

This he told the police himself after they arrested him. Before he started working in the apartment himself, another man, from the same country, must have worked there for a few months with similar work.

The workplace turned out to be an apartment in the middle of central Malmö, near Lilla Torg. There was a computer with a program that showed what customers ordered, 1.9 million empty capsules, envelopes and the drug-classified substance pregabalin.

What on the surface looked like a normal apartment in one of Malmö's entertainment districts turned out to be a drug factory with a company-like structure.

In the attack on the apartment, pregabalin powder and empty capsules were found, as well as equipment used to fill the capsules. Photo: The preliminary investigation

Received salary and duties

Four men, including the guest worker, aged 22-30 were indicted today for, among other things, serious drug crime and serious drug smuggling. They must have smuggled in a few hundred kilos of pregabalin powder and sold on to customers in Sweden and Europe.

Pregabalin is a drug used to treat epilepsy and anxiety, among other things, and was classified last year.

Half a ton of pregabalin

Prior to the arrest of the foreign worker, the Customs had been investigating the league for several months. The reason was that they had seen large batches of pregabalin powder smuggled into Sweden from China with cut import data.

According to the Customs, it is likely that half a ton of pregabalin was collected during 2018 and 2019. The league is believed to have sold pregabalin worth up to SEK 19 million during the same period.

The investigation shows how the business functioned as a company, where the accused men were given information distributed by a data provider via an encrypted chat app. The employees were paid monthly salaries.

Between two mattresses in the apartment were found numerous capsules and envelopes. Photo: The preliminary investigation

But the person who allegedly ruled the factory is not identified.

- It is through interrogation data that we have been informed that the control was done via this app and that the data provider is in Malaysia. But we have not had enough information to prosecute him, says Anna Ericsson, Deputy Director of the Customs Administration.

Biggest prosecution regarding pregabalin

The four suspected men acknowledge some circumstances in the prosecution, but deny the crime. Two of the men charged face 10 years in prison.

The prosecution is the largest of its kind regarding pregabalin in Sweden.

An image from a surveillance camera shows how one of the people involved fetches pregabalin at Sturup. Photo: The preliminary investigation