Russian driver held with 154 kg of hashish at Kotlovka crossing
Belarusian customs officers stopped a 44-year-old Russian citizen at the Kotlovka crossing on the Lithuanian border and found 154 kg of hashish in 231 bricks hidden in the truck. Grodno Regional Customs opened a criminal case against the driver and detained him; the charge carries up to 10 years in prison.
🇧🇾 Kotlovka border crossing, Ostrovets District, Grodno Region · Belarus
Grodno customs officers stopped a 44-year-old Russian citizen at the Kotlovka
border crossing on the border with Lithuania as he tried to bring 154 kg of
hashish into the Eurasian Economic Union.[1]Investigators say he acted as
part of a group that had agreed in advance and meant to deliver the consignment
to Russia.[1]The truck was empty and the hashish was hidden in specially
built compartments in the truck.[1]
A customs sniffer dog confirmed that the hiding places held drugs.[1]After
dismantling the decorative lining of the cab floor and the front part of the
semi-trailer, officers removed 231 bricks of pressed dark-brown substance.[1]An expert of the Lida interdistrict department of the State Committee of
Forensic Examinations for the Grodno region confirmed that the substance was
hashish.[1]
Grodno Regional Customs opened a criminal case against the driver under part 2
of article 328-1 of the Criminal Code.[1]The man was detained under article
108 of the Criminal Procedure Code.[1]The charge carries up to 10 years in
prison, a possible penalty rather than a sentence the man has received.[1]
The state news agency BelTA reported the case, citing Grodno Regional Customs.[2]BelTA described the man as a carrier who drove through the Kotlovka
crossing with the drugs hidden in the empty truck.[2]Minskaya Pravda, the
Minsk regional news agency, reported that the hashish was found with an
inspection-scanning complex and that a sniffer dog confirmed the drug.[3]
Photos and video
One of the eight photos in the customs gallery published with the statement on the 154 kg hashish haul found in the truck at Kotlovka; the series is also the page's lead image. Photo: State Customs Committee of BelarusPhoto details
The customs statement gives no separate date for the interception; 11 October 2023 is its publication date and is used as the incident date.
No street value and no weight per brick beyond the stated 154 kg total were published.
No court outcome was reported beyond the opened criminal case.
The driver's name was not published, only his age and Russian citizenship.
BelTA and Minskaya Pravda relay the customs committee's own statement, so the accounts are not independent.
The customs page carries eight uncaptioned photos and two YouTube embeds; only the lead gallery photo is linked because the individual contents of the others cannot be established from the text.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in Таможенные органы Республики Беларусь: Customs officers located the hiding places with an inspection-scanning complex, whose scan clearly showed extra layers.
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Belarus's Operational Customs seized about 2 kg of hashish that had been brought in from Poland hidden in a gearbox housing. Investigators said the intended recipients were two minors, and a criminal case carrying up to 10 years was opened against one of the couriers.
Belarus officers detained a 66-year-old courier in Skidel after he collected balloon-delivered drugs in a forest, seizing 11 kg of hashish from his car and 14 kg more from a nearby cache. A separate balloon recovered from a fish-farm pond in Grodno District held 326 bricks of hashish with GPS trackers and a Lithuanian SIM card.
Belarusian customs found 100 briquettes holding 260 kg of hashish in a Polish carrier's truck that arrived at the Berezovitsa border crossing from Poland in February 2026. A 41-year-old Russian citizen was detained as the consignee after joint work with Russian customs, and Belarusian and Russian customs opened criminal cases.
