{"id":105502,"date":"2025-03-01T23:31:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T21:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison"},"modified":"2025-03-04T01:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T23:11:15","slug":"zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwean Court Sentences Latvian Drug Trafficker To 15 Years In Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. <\/strong><\/span>A Harare magistrate has sentenced 27-year-old Latvian national, Vitalis Kudrjasovs, to 15 years in prison for attempting to smuggle 8.35kg of heroin through Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport.<\/p>\n<p>On September 22, 2022, Kudrjasovs checked in for his flight to India with Ethiopian Airlines, completed the necessary customs procedures, and submitted his luggage for clearance.<\/p>\n<p>However, airport security flagged his bags after suspicious contents were detected during a routine scan.<\/p>\n<p>Upon further inspection, four packages of heroin were discovered hidden in compartments within his two bags.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the 15-year prison sentence, Kudrjasovs was fined US$5,000. If he fails to pay the fine, he will face an additional 5 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Zimbabwe<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. A Harare magistrate has sentenced 27-year-old Latvian national, Vitalis Kudrjasovs, to 15 years in prison for attempting to smuggle 8.35kg of heroin through Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport. On September 22, 2022, Kudrjasovs checked in for his flight to India with Ethiopian Airlines, completed the necessary customs procedures, and submitted his luggage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":105501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[17768,9245,18072,18071,19],"class_list":["post-105502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-drug-trafficker","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-latvian-national","tag-vitalis-kudrjasovs","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Zimbabwean Court Sentences Latvian Drug Trafficker To 15 Years In Prison - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Harare magistrate has sentenced 27-year-old Latvian national, Vitalis Kudrjasovs, to 15 years in prison for attempting ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zimbabwean Court Sentences Latvian Drug Trafficker To 15 Years In Prison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Harare magistrate has sentenced 27-year-old Latvian national, Vitalis Kudrjasovs, to 15 years in prison for attempting ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"zimbabwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-01T21:31:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-03T23:11:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2025\/03\/sm_1740862526.821003.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"481\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Zimbabwean Court Sentences Latvian Drug Trafficker To 15 Years In Prison\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-01T21:31:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-03T23:11:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison\"},\"wordCount\":130,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2025\/03\/sm_1740862526.821003.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Drug Trafficker\",\"Drug Trafficking\",\"Latvian National\",\"Vitalis Kudrjasovs\",\"Zimbabwe\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-court-sentences-latvian-drug-trafficker-to-15-years-in-prison\",\"name\":\"Zimbabwean Court Sentences Latvian Drug Trafficker To 15 Years In Prison - 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