Poppy seed pastries put this family in prison for over eight years

A local court in the Russia city of Voronezh sentenced four members of the Polukhin family to prison for selling poppy seed pastries at their family bakery. The family was found guilty of drug trafficking.

Evgenia Polulkhina was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, her father Alexander Polukhin got a sentence of eight years and four months at a penal colony, and her grandmother Maria Polukhina (Alexander’s mother) as well as her grandmother’s sister Nina Chursina each got eight and a half years in jail.

The judge sentenced the women to longer prison terms than the six and a half years Attorney’s Office had asked for.

“They had developed a conspiracy method for selling drugs: they brought a narcotic mixture to drug dealing sites and disguised it as edible poppy sees needed for baking pastries and selling them at cafes,” the Attorney’s press office told news agency Interfax.

According to the judge, she could not find any mitigating evidence in the case.

The court proceedings in connection to the Polukhin case have lasted three years. In 2010, investigators searched the family café called Ochag (which translated from Russian to “Fireplace”), found edible poppy seeds there, and announced that the family was trafficking drugs. Maria Polukhina was found to be the leader of the “drug cartel,” while her son Alexander, a retired military officer, was suspected of heading the conspiracy. The investigators said the Polukhins were mixing edible poppy seeds with drugs and selling the cocktail.

The attorney acted aggressively at the court hearings and threatened to put all the family members in jail, but the judge refused to include his rash statements in the case files.

During court proceedings, the judge refused to consider the defense’s expert materials on how edible poppy seeds always contain a small amount of narcotics. The judge also made statements about the looming long prison sentences due for the Polukhins before court proceedings were finished and before she announced the final sentence: “After this kind of attitude and behavior, I think you’ll be sitting [behind bars] for a very long time,” she said.

Other people in Russia have also been sentenced for selling poppy seeds. In each case, the defense claimed that it was impossible to fully rid poppy seeds of narcotic traces, but this point has been systematically ignored in courts.