A leading Russian beauty queen and model agency owner faces up to 20 years in jail after being detained as a suspected drug dealer, law enforcement says.
Kristina Dukhina, 34, was held near her apartment in the desirable Moscow City skyscraper district.
She had been runner-up in the Miss Dubai 2019 contest and won Grand Prix Miss Federation in Russia the following year.
The mother of two also owns an agency aimed at establishing the modelling industry in Crimea, annexed by Vladimir Putin from Ukraine in 2014.
Dukhina was held by Russian police after being found in possession of more than half a kilogram of mephedrone, say reports and she is under investigation for the preparation of the illegal drug for sale.
"I decided to try my hand at beauty contests and show by example that dreams come true and nothing is impossible,” she said before her Dubai success.
“I did not expect to receive such a prestigious international title. Of course, I was always confident in myself and my beauty.”
Ahead of her arrest, she had abruptly cut her social media presence and posted saying she was leaving social networks.
“I will take only loved ones to my sterile empty room of a new life," she wrote.
Dukhina is detained pending further investigations, according to law enforcement.
A Kaliningrad defence lawyer, Maria Bontsler, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: “‘These cases are truly terrifying. It is very easy to ruin a person’s life. A few grams [of drugs] and a person can go to prison for many years.”
Drugs possession without intent to supply, in amounts exceeding 2.5 grams, is punishable by incarceration for up to 10 years.
Article 228 of the penal code regulates the purchase, possession, distribution, production and processing of drugs.
The law has been dubbed the "people's article" because one in three convicts are in jail because of drug possession.
There were 563,166 prisoners in the Russian Federation in 2019, of which 129,419 were imprisoned for drug law offences.
