St Petersburg court gives cannabis grower 13.5 years and 800,000 rouble fine
The Primorsky district court in St Petersburg sentenced Georgy Andreev to 13 years and six months in a strict-regime colony and fined him 800,000 roubles for running cannabis plantations in a city flat and a building in Leningrad Oblast. His son Danila got three and a half years suspended; Olga Vashkevich, who provided the premises, got four and a half years.
🇷🇺 St Petersburg (Primorsky district court) · Russia
The Primorsky district court in St Petersburg sentenced three people on 3 March 2026 for growing
cannabis in a flat in the city and in a building in Leningrad Oblast.[1][2]Georgy Andreev led the
planting and care of the plants, his son Danila watered them and brought fertiliser, and Olga
Vashkevich provided the premises and also watered the bushes.[2]
Between 13 November 2024 and the morning of 9 April 2025 the group grew 23 cannabis plants in the
Leningrad Oblast building and a similar number in the St Petersburg flat, 46 bushes in all.[2]Police shut the plantation down on 9 April 2025.[1][2]
At Andreev’s home officers also found 14.86 kilograms of other drugs, which he planned to sell with
the cannabis.[2]The court convicted all three under the drug-cultivation and trafficking articles
of the criminal code.[1][2]
Andreev was sentenced to 13 years and six months in a strict-regime penal colony and fined 800,000
roubles.[1][2]Danila received three and a half years suspended with a three-year probation period,
and Vashkevich four and a half years in a general-regime colony.[1][2]Georgy and Danila
admitted the charges in part; Vashkevich denied them.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Charged
3
Prison
13 years 6 months (strict regime)
Fine
RUB 800,000
Agency type
Police, Court
Cannabis
Living plants
Activity
Trafficking, Cultivation
Setting
Field
Grown
Outdoor
Case stage
Sentenced
Sentence
Prison, Fine, Probation
Sources
Kommersantkommersant.ruRU"Агронома" осудили на 13,5 года за наркоплантации в Ленобласти и Петербурге
47newsm.47news.ruRUArchived copyКусты конопли в Ленобласти и Петербурге обеспечили тройке от 3,5 условно до 13,5 строгой колонии
Open questions the AI reported
The reports do not specify where in Leningrad Oblast the building with the plantation stood.
The 14.86 kg of other drugs found at Andreev's home are not identified by type.
The defendants' ages were not published.
The court's full reasoning and any appeal were not reported.
No information was given on what happened to the 46 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.
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.
