Moscow: Russia Mistakes Chinese Tofu for Drugs, Detains 34 Travellers from China

Several Chinese travellers to Russia were detained at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow on Friday after officials suspected that some material they were carrying were drugs. 

The Russian Federal Customs Service had detained 34 Chinese whom they suspected of carrying 230 kilograms of meth, but the stuff was later found to be only food material that is used to make Chinese tofu, China Daily reported. 

The Chinese travellers are now being released by Russian authorities, the newspaper reported, citing China Radio International, adding that the food material was being tested for its chemical composition. 

Russian media had reported on Friday that authorities had nipped a "mass attempt of smuggling over 500 pounds of methamphetamine."

Russian officials had grown suspicious of the travellers after they found the material resembling meth in their bags.  

"While checking passengers at customs control on March 6, who had arrived from a Beijing-Moscow flight, employees from the Sheremetyevo customs detained 34 Chinese citizens who were attempting to smuggle 230 kilograms of methamphetamines into the territory of Russia," the Russian authoirties had said in a statement on Friday, according to Sputnik International.