Police acting on a tip from local residents uncovered a methamphetamine laboratory one floor above a justice of the peace courtroom in Yekaterinburg.
The courtroom is housed on the ground floor of a multistory building at 20 Ulitsa Kultury with residential apartments on the floors above, and the second-floor lab was used to produce a potent form of Pervitin, a type of methamphetamine, Life News reported Thursday.
The drugmakers dealt the narcotic on site, and used needles were found discarded in the stairwell, the news site reported.
The dealers equipped their rented apartment with a special ventilation system to keep odors from the drug's production from wafting into the courtroom. But the illicit smell permeated the rest of the building leading neighbors to demand that the local City Without Drugs foundation investigate the residence.
"We arrested three people," foundation vice president Yevgeny Malenkin told Life News. "The organizer, Sergei, was making 100 doses a day, while his helper, Diana, would bring needles to addicts on the stairs."
The third person, also identified only by his first name, Eduard, was found with a knife when he was arrested. He was later determined to be wanted for murder in a separate case.