MOSCOW, December 26 (RAPSI) – TThai authorities have extradited wrestler Igor Cherkesov, who was sentenced to 5 years in absentia in Russia and placed on the international wanted list for large-scale smuggling of anabolic steroids, reads a statement of the Russian Interior Ministry released on Friday.

Russian national was detained in the resort town of Pattaya in early December and handed over to Russian authorities.

Cherkesov, born in 1965, was arrested in 2010 in Russia on suspicion of transporting large amounts of prohibited substances from Thailand during the previous 18 months, the Irkutsk Region Department of the Federal Drug Control Service said.

Cherkesov used these substances himself and also gave them to his athlete acquaintances.

Cherkesov remained in prison from February to September 2010, when he was released on his own recognizance. In June 2012, Cherkesov went into hiding and was placed on the federal wanted list. In July 2013, a court in Irkutsk, eastern Siberia, sentenced Cherkesov in absentia to five years in prison.