ULAN-UDE, March 12 (RIA Novosti) – A court in Russia’s Siberian republic of Buryatia sentenced a man to six years in jail for attempting to sell half a kilo of heroin, regional prosecutors reported on Tuesday.

Vasily Yekusov was held during a special operation last year when tried to sell at least 483 grams of a heroin-based mixture to an undercover policeman who the court named only as “Agent Slava.” The dealer brought the drugs from the city of Irkutsk, leaving his car with the dealers who supplied him as a deposit.

In addition to the six-year jail term, Yekusov, was ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 rubles ($1,628).

Anti-narcotics officials in the Buryatia republic confiscated some 2.1 tons of drugs last year, some 99 percent of which was cannabis.

© RIA Novosti.

Penalties for drug-related crimes in Russia