A man from Slobodzeya in Transnistria has been sentenced to 21 years in a strict-regime prison colony with confiscation of his property for selling drugs.[1] The prosecution of Slobodzeya and Slobodzeya district presented the state case against the man, whom the prosecutor and the news agency name as Anton Malyshev.[1] The Slobodzeya district court convicted him of the charges, the prosecutor’s office said in its own account of the verdict.[2]

Prosecutors said he was a member of an organised group that from July 2022 repeatedly collected wraps of narcotic and psychotropic substances, portioned for single use and classed in large and especially large amounts, from hiding places.[1] He sold the substances without meeting buyers, by dropping packages in hiding places across Slobodzeya and its district, until law enforcement officers detained him in February 2023.[1] The investigation found evidence of more than 200 drug sales, and officers seized 76 wraps of drugs from hiding places in the district.[1] A search of his home found 143 wraps holding several kinds of drugs, packed for later sale.[1]

In court he admitted the offences and said he had made about 3,000 hiding-place drops during nine months of dealing.[2] The prosecutor’s office said nothing about the drugs being cannabis and published no weight for any of the wraps.[1]