Gary Cameron/Reuters
The wife of a convicted drug dealer dubbed Russia’s “Walter White” has received a pardon from Vladimir Putin after her husband joined the mercenary Wagner Group, according to a report.
St. Petersburg physics teacher Diana Gribovskaya and her veterinarian husband, Dmitry Karavaichik, were convicted of manufacturing and distributing amphetamine in 2018. Karavaichik insisted that the drugs found in his apartment had been planted and that he had only sold fake narcotics in order to raise cash for developing prosthetic limbs for cats and dogs.
At trial, Karavaichik also claimed that police operatives had threatened him and his elderly mother with electric shock torture, Meduza reports. But he was nevertheless sentenced to 17 years in prison and Gribovskaya was handed a 16-year sentence, with their stories of seemingly leaving behind quiet lives to peddle drugs drawing comparisons in the Russian press with the meth manufacturing chemistry teacher protagonist of Breaking Bad.