PENZA, August 13 (RIA Novosti) – A crew of gas pipeline workers, aged 30 to 55, has been caught taking a kilo of marijuana and several bags of synthetic cannabis to a job in central Russia, an anti-drug official said Tuesday.
Four of the seven workers were high when detained, said the official, Yelena Samorukova. Two of the intoxicated workers had been driving, she added.
The regional branch of the Federal Drug Control Service said in an undated statement that the workers faced up to 20 years in prison for illegal possession and transportation of narcotics.
The workers, including a welder with 25 years of experience and similarly experienced excavator operators and metal carvers, were driving from the city of Penza to the job in the town of Morshansk, Samorukova said.
Some 150,000 people in Russia are jailed annually for drug-related crimes, the Federal Drug Control Service said earlier this year.
