Rum women: why a veterinarian from Voronezh got a sentence

Solntsevskaya City Court of the capital ruled on the case of preparation for the sale and smuggling of cocaine from Venezuela. The members of the group received impressive prison sentences. However, the case is notable not only for the method of transportation of the prohibited substance, but also for the tragic consequences for the fate of one of the defendants, a veterinarian from Voronezh, Olga Stepanova. With a high degree of probability, it could have been used blindly, the defense believes. The details of the dramatic trial are in the Izvestia article.

The Hour of Judgment

All the defendants in the criminal case on the supply of cocaine to Russia from Venezuela in February 2024 were found guilty of drug smuggling and trafficking. A source in the courtroom told Izvestia that the alleged organizers of the supply, Irina Markina and Andrei Plisko, received 13 and 14 years in prison, respectively. "Markina's husband, Alexander, received 12 years in prison for cultivating narcotic plants, which the investigation and operatives became aware of as part of the development of Markina and Plisko. Antonina Zhuravleva, who confessed to acting as a courier, got off with a term of 8 years in prison. And her friend, 60-year-old Olga Stepanova, to whom she put a sealed bottle of rum with a drug in a suitcase, was given 11.5 years in a penal colony. The verdict has not entered into force at the time of publication.

Only Stepanova completely denied her involvement throughout the entire process. Other participants also testified that she was not involved in the crime and that she was blindly used by Zhuravleva. Zhuravleva and Plisko testified during the investigation that Stepanova had nothing to do with it, as follows from the analysis of negotiations and correspondence between accomplices. The truthfulness of the testimony was also confirmed with a high degree of reliability by polygraph tests conducted by police experts. However, already at the hearing, Zhuravleva stated that Stepanova allegedly knew about the contents of the bottle. After this step, the state prosecution requested a significantly shorter term for Zhuravleva than for her friend — 10.5 and 12 years, respectively. But the court treated Zhuravleva even more humanely.

Home on Cocaine

According to the indictment (a copy is available to the editorial board), in February 2024, law enforcement agencies stopped the activities of an organized group involved in smuggling a large shipment of cocaine from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to Russia.

It is clear from the case file that the main person known to the investigation in the criminal group is Irina Markina. The investigation claims that it was she who, acting on the instructions of an unidentified organizer named "Mikhail" (the case against the unidentified person has been separated into a separate proceeding), became the key coordinator of the logistics operation for the delivery of cocaine from South America. In particular, Markina's allegedly anonymous accomplice's scheme was to transport the drug in passengers' carry-on bags under the guise of rum. The technology of drug dissolution in alcohol has been adopted by cartels for quite a long time. The couriers were supposed to arrive in one of the South American countries disguised as tourists. On the last day of the trip, they were supposed to be given a bottle of dissolved substance.

Coordinator Markina communicated with the anonymous patron using a laptop delivered to her by courier. The device had all the necessary programs for communication and conspiracy. With the help of e-mail, Mikhail had remote access to the mailbox, controlled and coordinated Markina's actions to send people for the "package." The woman received payment from Mikhail through a stash tab.

Markina and her husband are also being investigated for growing cannabis at home.

The Love Polyhedron

Markina, according to her testimony, did not dare to become a courier herself, citing the presence of a young child, and involved her lover Andrei Plisko, a former fitness trainer, in this activity. According to Markina's testimony, the athlete agreed to enter the business for a share in the form of a drug. He assured me that he would find people for supplies on his own. So Zhuravleva was involved in the case, who, despite the significant age difference, also shared a romantic relationship with the coach. Plisko has already been prosecuted for drug trafficking — in 2023 he received a suspended sentence, he had problems with drug use.

According to the prosecution, the athlete found a "courier" — 60-year-old Antonina Zhuravleva, with whom he had been close friends for many years. She was promised a substantial sum for her "work." According to the investigation, Zhuravleva deliberately agreed to the transportation and, for conspiracy, invited her longtime friend Olga Stepanova (the women went to school together) on a tourist trip to Venezuela. Izvestia previously described a dramatic story involving the criminal prosecution of veterinarian Stepanova.

The first delivery was planned from the Dominican Republic, but the weather prevented the drug dealers from transferring the cargo — the substance could not be delivered in time for the departure of the tour group.

The weak point of the charge

The indictment contains a number of points that call into question Olga Stepanova's awareness of the drug supply. Convict Andrei Plisko initially emphasized in his testimony that the woman had nothing to do with their cases. Excerpts from his testimony: "Stepanova has nothing to do with it. She didn't know anything, Zhuravleva hadn't told her (...) Stepanova doesn't know anything." To the credit of Plisko, who received the maximum sentence, he remained faithful to his testimony. Antonina Zhuravleva claimed in her testimony that Stepanova was in the dark, and even "asked her for forgiveness, said that she had written... that Stepanova didn't know anything."

In her testimony, Stepanova consistently insisted that she considered the trip to be an ordinary vacation, and perceived the bottle handed over by the courier as rum ordered by Plisko over the Internet. She described in detail how the drug bottle ended up in her suitcase. It was an accident for her, because of the excess baggage.

There are also a lot of inconsistencies in the investigation's version: it's hard to imagine that experienced smugglers, fearing leaks, would initiate an outsider who has no criminal history and stable motivation into the essence of the crime (Stepanova has a stable income and an official job). The version of its use "blindly" looks much more plausible.

"Olga Stepanova's story is an alarming signal of how easy it is to become a pawn in a dangerous criminal game by trusting people you know," Elena Gerasimova, Stepanova's lawyer, commented on the court's decision. — Or just a victim of an enemy — he put powder in someone else's suitcase and, consider, there is no person. It turns out that the investigation relieves itself of the task of proving a person's intent when something prohibited is found in his luggage. The testimony of Zhuravleva, who is vitally interested in the loyalty of the state prosecutor, can hardly be called iron-clad irrefutable evidence.

"The defense considers the verdict illegal and unfair, and it will appeal," Elena Gerasimova explained to Izvestia.