As is customary with big international drug-related arrests in Indonesia, a Russian national allegedly caught bringing in three kilograms of hashish to Bali was front and center of a press conference with Ngurah Rai customs officials.
Footage from the press conference was posted to YouTube by local newspaper Tribun Bali, showing customs officers holding one of 27 tubes of toothpaste that Russian man Roman Kalashnikov allegedly stuffed with cannabis extract.
Kalashnikov was reportedly arrested on Dec. 11 after landing in Bali from KL on Malindo flight OD 306.
“So, the modus operandi is that the hashish was put into a paste and packaged in toothpaste tubes. It was well-organized, indeed, we know he was already extraordinarily organized,” head of Ngurah Rai Airport Customs Budi Harjanto said on Wednesday to the press.
The volume the Russian was trying to bring in is a record for Bali in 2016, according to Harjanto.
“For this year, this is the largest quantity that’s been caught. It’s around three kilograms,” Harjanto said.
Customs believes Kalashnikov purchased the drugs in Nepal and was bringing them to Bali for the Christmas and New Year’s rush.
This was Kalashnikov’s second time in Bali—he visited in October to scope out the scene, customs says.
Under Indonesian narcotics law, Kalashnikov could be facing punishments as harsh as the death penalty or life imprisonment, says Harjanto.
