BEIJING: Russian Federal Customs Service had detained 34 Chinese mistakenly on drug smuggling charges at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.
Russian authorities had said in a statement that while checking passengers at customs control, who had arrived from a Beijing-Moscow flight, employees from the customs services detained Chinese citizens who were attempting to smuggle 230 kilograms of methamphetamines into the territory of Russia, but the stuff was later found to be only food material that is used to make Chinese tofu.
The Chinese travelers are now being released by Russian authorities, adding that the food material was being tested for its chemical composition.
Russian media had reported that authorities had nipped a “mass attempt of smuggling over 500 pounds of methamphetamine.”
Russian officials had grown suspicious of the travelers after they found the material resembling meth in their bags.