A couple of police officers in Russia were convicted for busting a drug den that they had created themselves in order to boost their performance rating. Senior detective Ivan Mantrov and Yury Titov, the head of a police station in the Russian city of Kostroma, allegedly convinced three locals to produce the illegal synthetic drug desomorphine, aka “crocodile”, in an apartment, even offering to supply the necessary ingredients, which are thought to have been sourced from the police’s evidence stores. The two officers convinced the victims – known drug users already under investigation in another case – to set up the drug then by promising to help them get off on bail. After talking their victims into setting up the drug lab, Titov and Mantrov reportedly raided the place and launched a case against one of their “suspects”, which has since been closed. Their end goal was to boost their performance rating, but the local internal affairs bureau caught wind of their plan and handed the evidence to the Investigations Committee, Russia’s equivalent of the FBI. Following an internal investigation, the two police officers were charged with exceeding their lawful authority and encouraging drug use. Interestingly, Titov and Mantrov won’t be spending any time behind bars for their crime. Titov got a six-year suspended sentence, while Mantrov got a suspended sentence of three and a half years. The BBC reports that planting drugs on innocent people is a common practice among Russian narcotics police, one that helps them meet steep performance targets.