The Akademichesky District Court in Yekaterinburg has sentenced former head of the agriculture and crop production department at the Sverdlovsk region’s Ministry of Agro-Industrial Complex, Igor Krupsky. According to the regional courts’ press service, he was given 12 years and 6 months in prison.
The court found Krupsky guilty on charges related to the production and trafficking of narcotics, as well as the cultivation of plants containing narcotic substances. Businessman Igor Sokolov was convicted alongside him and received 12 years in prison on the same charges. Both men are to serve their sentences in a maximum-security penal colony.
According to investigators, Krupsky, who because of his education “was highly knowledgeable in crop production,” drew Sokolov and two other people into an underground drug-production operation. Investigators say that from January 2023 to December 2024, the group produced more than 21 kilograms of narcotic substances.
Krupsky’s detention became known in January 2025. According to E1.RU, the case materials mentioned 143 cannabis plants: security officers found containers with the plants in the village of Kochnevskoye, about 60 kilometers from Yekaterinburg.
The plot belonged to Krupsky’s acquaintance, firefighter Kamil Galimzyanov. After his arrest, he entered into a deal with the investigation and was later sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison. The prosecution said Galimzyanov had cared for the plants and was also involved in packaging and selling narcotics.
Another defendant in the case was fitness trainer Semyon Zelinsky. During the investigation stage, he signed a contract with the Defense Ministry and went to war in Ukraine. As E1.RU notes, Sokolov admitted guilt only to possessing narcotic substances at his home and insisted that he had bought them for personal use.