Lithuanian court upholds over 10-year sentences for men who smuggled large drug shipment from Netherlands

A Lithuanian appeals court has rejected the appeals of two men convicted of smuggling a “particularly large quantity” of narcotics and psychotropic substances from the Netherlands into Lithuania, upholding prison sentences of over 10 years, state prosecutors announced on Sunday.

The Vilnius Regional Court had previously found the two defendants—identified only as G.M. (born 1990) and I.T. (born 1983)—guilty of drug trafficking and possession in February 2025. The court sentenced each to 10 years and 3 months in prison, a ruling now confirmed by the Lithuanian Court of Appeal.

Investigators determined that in 2023, the men smuggled cocaine, cannabis, chloromethcathinone (3-CMC), ketamine, MDMA, LSD, and newly emerged synthetic psychotropic substances into Lithuania. They distributed the drugs in hidden locations across Vilnius and its surrounding region until their arrest in October 2023. During a search, police seized €80,400 in cash from G.M., which the court ordered confiscated.

The defendants and their lawyers had appealed for reduced sentences, but the higher court dismissed their claims. The case was prosecuted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office, with support from Marijampolė County Police.