Russia’s Federal Customs Service announced on Saturday (5) that an American basketball player was detained at Sheremetyevo airport, on the outskirts of the capital Moscow, after being caught carrying in her luggage cartridges of vaporizers containing hashish oil, a derivative of of cannabis. The information is from the New York Times.
The statement does not reveal the athlete’s identity, but states that she won two Olympic gold medals with the United States basketball team. The Russian news agency TASS reported, based on sources from the security forces, that the detained player would be Brittney Griner, 31, a center for the Phoenix Mercury and gold medalist at the Rio-2016 and Tokyo-2021 Games.
Russian customs released a video of a female traveler resembling Griner, wearing a mask and a hoodie, going through airport security routines. The images show the moment an agent removes a package from the suspect’s suitcase.
The arrest took place in February, according to local authorities, raising the possibility that the player had been in custody for several days. According to the statement, a criminal case has been opened against the athlete, and the sentence can reach 10 years in prison in Russia if she is convicted.
“We are aware of the situation with Brittney Griner in Russia and are in close contact with her, her legal representation in Russia, her family, her teams and the WNBA,” the player’s manager, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, said in a statement.
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