Tskhinvali man fined 8,000 rubles after 37.73 g of marijuana found at home
Police searched the home of a 56-year-old Tskhinvali resident and seized 37.73 grams of marijuana, South Ossetia's Interior Ministry said. A Tskhinvali court fined him 8,000 rubles for drug use, and he faces a criminal inquiry over storing the drug.
Acting on operational information, officers from the drug control department of
South Ossetia’s criminal police searched the home of a 56-year-old Tskhinvali
resident, the Interior Ministry said.[1]They seized37.73 grams of marijuana
during the search.[1]A medical examination found traces of marijuana in his
body, the ministry said.[2]
The Tskhinvali city court fined him 8,000 rubles for illegal drug use.[1]The
fine was an administrative penalty, not a criminal sentence.[1]The Interior
Ministry said the man also faces criminal punishment for storing the marijuana
found in his home.[1]The drug control department of the criminal police,
known by the Russian initials UKON KM, is conducting the inquiry into the
storage.[1]
Tskhinvali is the capital of South Ossetia, whose Interior Ministry announced
the case.[2]The ministry said the resident would be held liable for both
illegal use and storage of narcotic drugs.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Both reports repeat the same Interior Ministry press release, so the search and the court fine are not independently confirmed.
Neither report dates the search or the court hearing; 30 October 2026 is the date both were published.
The man is not named, and neither report says whether he was detained or what criminal charge he may face.
No photograph of the search or the seized marijuana was published; the images on the two pages show an Interior Ministry building and a forensic laboratory.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in Sputnik Южная Осетия: The court's fine covered the use; the inquiry concerns the storage.
Georgia's Central Criminal Police detained seven Georgian and foreign nationals in Tbilisi on charges of large-scale drug acquisition, storage and facilitation of sale. Searches recovered dried marijuana and THC alongside synthetic drugs, with the charges carrying up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.
Police in Georgia detained two people in separate operations, including a controlled delivery of a parcel from abroad that held about 200 THC capsules. The second detention at Tbilisi airport involved methadone and buprenorphine, with both cases investigated as especially large-scale import punishable by up to life imprisonment.
The Interior Ministry registered 5,598 drug crimes in 2024, 10,475 in 2025 and 7,533 in the first half of 2026; more than half were purchase or possession under Article 260. The Prosecutor General's Office opened 119 drug cases against Russian citizens in 2024, 196 in 2025 and 234 in the first nine months of 2026.
Prosecutors charged five people after police found 1,337 cannabis plants, weighing more than 143 kilograms, in the village of Vakiri in Sighnaghi municipality. Searches of homes linked to the suspects also turned up 3.3 kilograms of dried marijuana already packaged, drying equipment and digital scales.