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Police in Moscow, Russia, arrested musician Travis Michael Leake, a U.S. citizen, last week on charges of running a drug trafficking ring “involving young people.”
Russian state media announced the arrest on Saturday and said Leake could face up to 20 years in prison.
Russian state media posted a video of Leake and a friend named Valeria Grobanyuk being taken into custody during a drug raid. In the clip, Leake expressed confusion about the reason for his arrest.
“I don’t understand why I’m here. I don’t admit guilt, I don’t believe I could have done what I’m accused of because I don’t know what I’m accused of,” he reportedly told the Moscow police.
Russian reports said Leake is suspected of selling mephedrone, a drug with effects similar to cocaine or MDMA. A Moscow court ordered him to be held in pre-trial detention for at least two months.
Leake is a musician and rock band manager who has written songs and performed backup vocals for several Russian punk rock bands. His social media profile says he has been the lead vocalist for a Moscow-based group called Lovi Noch (“Seize the Night”) for the past five years.
In 2014, Leake appeared on an episode of “Parts Unknown,” an offbeat travelog and food show hosted by the late Anthony Bourdain. The episode featured conversations with several critics of the increasingly authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin — one of whom, former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated a year after the episode aired.
