Officers of the Kakheti Police Department and the Central Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, as a result of joint operational measures and investigative actions, detained 5 individuals on charges of illegal sowing, cultivation, and production on an especially large scale of a plant containing a narcotic substance, complicity in this crime, as well as unlawful acquisition, possession, and facilitation of distribution of a narcotic substance. This was reported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

“Those detained are: L.M., born in 1985; D.M., born in 1989; R.Ch., born in 2001; Kh.S., born in 2003; and previously convicted Z.Ch., born in 1978.

The crimes carry a penalty of up to 20 years of imprisonment or life sentence. The investigation established that the defendants, in one of the villages of the Sighnagi Municipality, on a farmland plot they temporarily used, were engaged in the illegal sowing, growing, and cultivation of the cannabis plant, and later dried the cannabis in a specially equipped room in a residential house.

As a result of a search of the farmland, law enforcement officers seized as evidence 1,337 cannabis plants in especially large quantity, as well as a large amount of dried marijuana and scales intended for marijuana packaging.