Russian gets 18 years over 70 kg of hashish smuggled from Spain
The Leningrad Oblast court gave a Russian member of an international group 18 years in a strict-regime colony and a 750,000-rouble fine for smuggling more than 70 kg of hashish from Spain and attempting to sell it in Russia. Belarusian customs caught the drug at Brest, and it was then run under police control to a hand-over in Vyborg district; the Moldovan courier got 14 years in Belarus.
🇷🇺 Leningrad Oblast (hand-over on a forest clearing in Vyborg district) · Russia
The Leningrad Oblast court sentenced a Russian member of an international drug
group to 18 years in a strict-regime colony and a fine of 750,000 roubles for
smuggling hashish and attempting to sell it.[1]The verdict had recently
entered into legal force when the Interior Ministry published its account.[1]The courier who brought the consignment was separately sentenced in Belarus to
14 years in prison.[1]
Belarusian customs officers found more than 70 kg of hashish in a
Moldovan-registered SUV at the Brest international checkpoint.[1]The hashish
had been packed into 720 packages hidden in the cavities of the vehicle’s sill
panels and moved from Spain to Poland and on to Moldova before the crossing.[1]Belarusian investigators asked Moscow colleagues to join the operation
because the consignment was bound for Russia, and the Russian side was led by
Colonel of Justice Grigory Levusenkov of the Interior Ministry’s Investigation
Department.[1]
Investigators replaced most of the hashish with dummies and ran a controlled
delivery under police watch.[1]The courier drove to a village in Pskov Oblast
and then to a filling station on the Kiev highway in Leningrad Oblast, where he
met the Russian contact.[1]Their car got stuck on a forest clearing in Vyborg
district, and officers detained the Russian as the packages were handed over.[1]
According to the ministry’s account, the Russian admitted under questioning that
the group planned regular deliveries of drugs to Russia.[1]Cases against the
other members of the group were separated out, and Russian police put the
suspects, most of them foreign citizens, on an international wanted list.[1]
Photos and video
Seized bars of hashish laid out after the controlled delivery; the piece credits its photographs to police operational footage. Photo: operational footage, Russian Interior MinistryPhoto details
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Source: МВД МЕДИАSecond photograph published with the piece on the Russian member of the international drug group sentenced to 18 years. Photo: operational footage, Russian Interior MinistryPhoto details
The verdict's date is not given; the ministry says only that it had recently entered into legal force, and 5 February 2025 is the piece's publication date and stands in for the incident date.
The hashish weight is stated only as more than 70 kg, so the figure is recorded as 70 kg; no street value was published.
The text names the Leningrad Oblast court but gives no case number, article numbers, or the defendant's name; the Interior Ministry account is the only source opened for this verdict.
A brief item at the end of the piece describes an unrelated Tobolsk arrest with about 2.5 kg of hashish; it is a separate event and is not counted in this report's figures.
The second photograph's own caption is not established; the article captions only the first picture, as seized hashish from police operational footage.
The piece is not the court's own statement, and an attempt to open TASS reporting on a September 2026 Leningrad Oblast verdict over a 70 kg delivery from Spain failed, so no separate account of this verdict was opened.
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Convicted 1Sentenced 1Cannabis 312 gPrison 3 years suspended with 3-year probation
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