A case was opened against an American living in Moscow for purchasing a cleaning product on the Internet.

A case was opened against American Gaylen Grandstaff, who teaches English in Moscow, for large-scale smuggling of psychotropic drugs (Part 3 of Article 229.1 of the Criminal Code) due to ordering a cleaning product from an online store. This was reported by the BBC Russian Service.

In the summer of 2017, Gaylen Grandstaff and his wife Anna ordered peptides for cell regeneration and a metal cleaner from a Chinese store. According to Anna Grandstaff, in 1994, her husband was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract. In one of the studies, he read that peptides alleviate the symptoms of diseases. After that, he began taking them regularly.

That package was brought home to them by a man who introduced himself as a courier from the EMS service. It was later revealed that he was a customs officer involved in a controlled delivery operation. In the box, instead of what I ordered, there were two bottles of Senezhskaya mineral water and the Customs magazine.

According to the BBC Russian Service, the cleaning product contains gamma-butyrolactone, which is included in the list of drugs prohibited in Russia; it can be used as a psychotropic substance. Because of this, a criminal case was opened against Geilen Grandstaff, the court sent him to a pre-trial detention center, where he has been staying for more than a year.

The examination, as the BBC writes, showed that Geilen had not previously taken psychotropic substances, so the investigation believes that the American ordered the drug to build muscles, since the substance it contains increases the level of growth hormone. The wife denies that her husband was fond of sports.

“He is not a bodybuilder, he is 52 years old and he has a plate in his neck, which eliminates increased stress,” says Anna Grandstaff.

She also insists that her husband ordered the product to use it for its intended purpose - to clean the moonshine still and drink only home-produced alcohol. According to the woman, Gaylen Grandstaff did not discuss the composition of the product with the seller and did not know that it contained a substance prohibited in Russia.