Moldovan hashish organizer jailed 9 years over 16.8 kg from Ukraine
A Chisinau court sentenced the organizer of a 2023 smuggling of more than 16.8 kg of hashish from Ukraine to nine years in prison and declared him wanted. The hashish was hidden in a car’s spare-wheel niche and stopped at Lipcani; the woman driver and an accomplice had already been sentenced in 2024.
A Chisinau court sentenced the organizer of the smuggling of almost 17 kg of
hashish brought from Ukraine into Moldova in 2023 to nine years in prison.[1]The court also ordered the convicted organizer to be put on the wanted list.[2]The organizer was tried in his absence.[1]
Investigators said the hashish was hidden in a specially equipped compartment in
the spare-wheel well, where officers found 178 packages weighing more than 16.8
kg.[1]The car arriving from Ukraine was stopped in Lipcani on the evening of
23 February 2023, when the 32-year-old woman driving said she was carrying Botox
and was travelling with two children and her 63-year-old father.[1]A forensic
report found that the hiding place had been made artisanally and had not been
fitted by the manufacturer.[2]
In 2024 an Edinet court had already sentenced the woman driver to nine years in
prison and her alleged accomplice to eight and a half years, detaining both
directly in the courtroom.[1]Prosecutors then appealed the acquittal of the
convicted woman’s father, who allegedly provided the car, and the failure to
confiscate the vehicle for the state.[1]PCCOCS said the 2023 interception
relied on operational information from Moldova’s Intelligence and Security
Service obtained from Ukrainian law enforcement, with customs officers
investigating under PCCOCS direction.[2]
Photos and video
Seized hashish concealed in the spare-wheel niche of the smuggling car. Photo: PCCOCSPhoto details
PCCOCSprocuratura.mdROOrganizatorul contrabandei cu aproape 17 kg de hașiș din Ucraina, în 2023 – condamnat la 9 ani închisoare, la solicitarea procurorilor PCCOCS
Open questions the AI reported
The packaging is described differently: PCCOCS writes of 178 briquettes with 18 adhesive-taped packs holding more than 16.8 kg, while ESP summarizes them as 178 packages weighing more than 16.8 kg; the weight is consistent.
The exact date of the Chisinau judgment is not given beyond the PCCOCS statement dated 1 July 2026 and ESP’s report that PCCOCS announced it on Wednesday, 1 July.
The organizer is not named in either cited source, so no identity is recorded here.
What happened after the wanted notice is unclear because the cited sources describe the organizer as wanted while also describing a separate last accomplice as found and arrested.
Cash of more than 5,000 dollars and more than 8,000 euros and August 2023 Chisinau searches valued around 6.7 million lei are mentioned only as background and are not recorded as cannabis figures.
No consolidated arrest total for the whole case is recorded as a figure because the sources describe successive detentions, acquittals under appeal and wanted notices rather than one total.
Four Chisinau students aged 19-22 were detained in Comrat for allegedly selling marijuana to fellow students. A court placed all four in preventive arrest for 30 days while trafficking charges carrying 15-17 years are investigated.
Police in Chișinău held a 25-year-old man for 72 hours after his Ford struck two pedestrians on a crossing on Grigore Vieru Boulevard on 10 November 2026, killing a woman of about 30. Tests found amphetamine, methamphetamine, PVP and cannabis in his body, and he held no driving licence.
Capital Police in Chișinău detained 10 people over the past week and are handling 19 drug cases after seizing PVP, hashish, marijuana and mephedrone. Patrol officers separately caught 13 people with prohibited substances and consumption devices, drawing up 26 contravention reports.
A Chișinău court fined Moldovan TikToker Nikolai Lebedev, known as Nekoglai, 100,000 lei (about 480,000 rubles) on 11 June 2026 for driving without a licence and refusing a blood sample, after a drug test found cannabinoids. Traffic police stopped him in Chișinău in February 2025, when he said he had smoked marijuana.
