A US citizen was sentenced on Thursday to 12 years and six months in a high security penal colony after being found guilty of attempted drug trafficking in Russia.
According to the Reuters news agency, the man was identified as Robert Romanov Woodland, 32, and was adopted in 1993 in Russia by American parents. His lawyer, Stanislav Kshevitsky, said that he was arrested in Russia at the beginning of January and partially admitted his guilt to a Russian court.
Moscow prosecutors accused Woodland of being part of a large-scale criminal group and of having transported 50 grams of mephedrone, a type of amphetamine, from a part of Moscow to an apartment, with the aim of selling it. According to prosecutors, the American was arrested as he was putting the drugs in a safe.
According to Reuters, Woodland has a Russian and a US passport, and had returned to Russia to meet his biological mother.
