Amur man jailed 4.5 years for 23 kg of marijuana and 162 cannabis plants
A Blagoveshchensk city court sentenced a local man to four and a half years in a strict-regime penal colony for illegally acquiring and storing more than 23 kilograms of marijuana and cultivating 162 cannabis plants. He gathered the plant near Markovo in August 2025, hid it in an abandoned house in Belogorye, and tended sprouts in his own garden from May to July 2026.
🇷🇺 Belogorye, Blagoveshchensk urban okrug, Amur Oblast · Russia
Arrested
1
Charged
1
Convicted
1
Sentenced
1
Agencies
Blagoveshchensk city court, law enforcement officers
A Blagoveshchensk city court found a local man guilty of illegally acquiring and
storing drugs on a large scale and of cultivating narcotic-containing plants.[1]The court sentenced him to four and a half years in a strict-regime penal
colony and took him into custody in the courtroom.[1]
In August 2025 the man gathered cannabis into two plastic bags near the village
of Markovo, and the total weight of the marijuana exceeded 23 kilograms.[1]He
took the cannabis to an abandoned house in the village of Belogorye, where he
dried it and kept it hidden until the owner reported the find to police in
September 2025 and the drugs were seized.[1]
From May to July 2026 the man noticed cannabis sprouts in his own garden in
Belogorye and decided to grow them, weeding the plants and creating conditions
for their growth.[1]In July 2026 law enforcement officers found and seized
162 cannabis bushes containing a narcotic substance on the household plot, and
experts concluded that the quantity was a large one.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Arrested
1
Charged
1
Convicted
1
Sentenced
1
Plants destroyed
162
Cannabis
23 kg
Prison
4 years 6 months
Agencies
Blagoveshchensk city court; law enforcement officers
Agency type
Court, Police
Cannabis
Herbal cannabis (23 kg); Living plants (162 plants)
Activity
Possession, Cultivation
Setting
Home, Other building
Charges
illegal acquisition and storage of drugs on a large scale (part 2 of article 228); cultivating narcotic-containing plants (part 1 of article 231)
Case stage
Sentenced
Sentence
Prison
Region
Amur Oblast
Date
Publication date
Sources
Порт Амурportamur.ruRUЗа 23 килограмма марихуаны и 162 куста конопли амурчанин проведет 4,5 года в колонии
Open questions the AI reported
The article gives no date for the court hearing; 11 November 2026 is its publication date and stands in for the event date.
The marijuana weight is stated as exceeding 23 kilograms, so 23 kg is used as a floor figure.
No age, name or criminal record for the convicted man was published.
The report gives no date for the seizure of the marijuana beyond September 2025.
Whether the sentence has been appealed or has taken legal effect is not reported.
Only one accessible account of the hearing was found.
The Bakhchisaray district court in Crimea convicted a resident of the village of Rechnoye under part 2 of article 228 and gave him three years of imprisonment, suspended, with a three-year probation period. Prosecutors said he picked leaves and flower heads from cannabis bushes he had planted at his home in July 2026 and kept 312 grams of the plant material in his outbuilding for his own use.
Convicted 1Sentenced 1Cannabis 312 gPrison 3 years suspended with 3-year probation
A court in Amur Oblast convicted a 20-year-old resident of Petropavlovka, in Ivanovsky District, of illegally buying a large consignment of cannabis in June and revoked his earlier suspended sentence. He was ordered to serve two and a half years in a general-regime penal colony after pleading guilty in full.
A court in Usman municipal okrug, Lipetsk Oblast, sentenced a local man to nine months in a strict-regime colony for illegally growing more than 30 cannabis bushes on the garden plot of his house. Prosecutors said he sowed the seeds for his own use, and the case was brought under part 1 of article 231 of Russia's Criminal Code.
A Levokumsky District court in Stavropol Krai sentenced two local men, aged 30 and 67, to two years and three years and three months in a general-regime penal colony for storing cannabis handed to them by acquaintances. Searches of their home found more than 1.4 kg of cannabis and more than 217 grams of explosive material, and the older man was also fined 5,000 roubles.
Charged 2Sentenced 2Cannabis 1.4 kgPrison 3 years 3 months
