An American musician who has lived in Russia for more than a decade has been arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking, Russian news media reported Saturday.
The reports said Michael Travis Leake is suspected of selling mephedrone, whose effects are similar to those of cocaine and MDMA. A Moscow court ordered him to be held for two months in pre-trial detention, the reports said.
He faces charges of production or distribution of drugs, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
An Instagram page under the name Travis Leake Instagram identifies him as the singer for the band Lovi Noch (Seize the Night). News reports said Leake is a former paratrooper with the U.S. military and has lived in Moscow since 2010.
Russian drug laws are strict. WNBA star Brittney Griner was arrested in February 2022 after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage at a Moscow airport. She was sentenced to nine years in prison, but was released in December in an exchange for U.S.-imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The U.S. State Department said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that it was aware of the reports that a U.S. citizen had recently been arrested in Moscow. It said when a U.S. citizen is detained overseas, the department “pursues consular access as soon as possible and works to provide all appropriate consular assistance.”
The department said it would have no further comment due to privacy considerations.
The bodies of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants killed in a Russian jet crash on Wednesday were sent to a nearby facility for medical and forensic analysis, according to Russian media.
A scowling Donald Trump posed for a mug shot Thursday as he surrendered inside a jail in Atlanta on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, creating a historic and humbling visual underscoring the former president's escalating legal troubles.
The former New York City mayor, charged as former President Donald Trump's chief co-conspirator in a plot to subvert the 2020 election, is charged with Trump and 17 other people under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
In this image taken from video, a cable car carrying six children and two adults dangles hundreds of meters above the ground in the remote Battagram district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023. The cable car malfunctioned, trapping the occupants for hours before rescuers arrived in helicopters to try to free them. (AP Photo)
