ST. PETERSBURG, July 15. /TASS/. Chemistry teacher Dmitry Karavaichik has been sentenced to 17 years of colony, and physics teacher Diana Gribovskaya got 16 years in colony. They were convinced for the creation of a criminal gang, the organization of a drug laboratory and drug sale, the united press service of St. Petersburg’s courts reported on Monday.

"The court sentenced Karavaichik to 17 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony, and Gribovsky to 16 years of imprisonment in a general penal colony," the press service reported on its Telegram channel.

According to earlier reports, Karavaichik and Gribovskaya organized a drug laboratory for amphetamine production, that they sold in St. Petersburg, in the Vyborg district, Leningrad Region, in 2017. The court specified that Karavaichik used "special knowledge in chemistry" in the drug production, and the physics teacher sold finished products: she found customers and gave them banned substances.

The investigators managed to prove that in their joint activity the teachers managed to sell at least 1.2 kg of chemical drugs; Gribovskaya was also found to have been selling hashish.

Gribovskaya and Karavaichik were sentenced under Section 228.1 of the Russian Criminal Code "Illegal production, sale or transportation of narcotic and psychotropic substances or their analogs." The press service noted that the sentenced people pled not guilty. The chemistry teacher said that he "produced not amphetamine but medicated mixtures, cheating buyers," and his teacher said that "psychotropic substances were planted" on them to the pharmaceutical drugs.