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A Saint Petersburg court on Thursday sentenced to 14 years in prison a member of a South American drug cartel for cocaine smuggling.
The dual Spanish-Ecuadoran national was caught with a shipment of cocaine in the city in November 2018 during an operation conducted by Russia’s drug control service, said a court statement.
Montoya Fernando Alfonso Sanchez operated on behalf of a South American cartel that was looking to start smuggling cocaine into Russia.
“Sanchez fully admitted his guilt,” the statement said following a hearing at the Saint Petersburg City Court.
He was sentenced to 14 years in a strict-regime penal colony.