After serving time in prison due to cultivating marijuana in his rented house, a Russian national found himself bidding farewell to Bali’s island as he was deported from the island of Gods by immigration officials.
On the 6th of June 2023, three immigration detention centre guards from Denpasar escorted IC, a 34-year-old Russian man, as he boarded a flight from I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport to Sheremetyevo Alexander S Pushkin International Airport in Moscow.
According to the reports, IC entered Indonesia in May 2017 on a tourist visa. Following an anonymous report that the Russian national had been cultivating marijuana in his rented house in Puri Gading, Jimbaran, police officially detained IC and his wife on the 22nd of January 2020.
Ruddi Setiawan, the head of the Denpasar Police Department, claimed in a statement that the marijuana was grown hydroponically, along with rich soil, compost sawdust, and artificial ultraviolet light.
“The marijuana that the suspects planted is harvested once every three months,” Ruddi stated.
The rented house has been home to both Russian national IC and his wife for two years, according to the police. They were detained on the 22nd of January 2020 at their rented house, where investigators also recovered an electrical scale, 6 jars holding of 710 grams of marijuana, 14 pots containing of marijuana seeds, and other marijuana-related items.
According to Ruddi, the Russian national couple prevented their landlord from accessing their rented house to conceal their crime from him.
“The house owner was not permitted to enter the house while cleaning. Perhaps they feared they would be discovered if he [entered],” Ruddi claimed.
According to the police, the pair purchased their marijuana seeds from another foreigner, who has only been identified by his initial “A” and is also Russian.
Following Indonesia’s strict drug laws, IC was later found guilty of farming marijuana and sentenced to four years and two months in prison. After spending a year in prison, his wife was deported.
After being freed from prison on the 19th of May, IC spent 20 days in the Denpasar Immigration Detention Centre before being sent back to his own country.
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