In February 2022, Grainer was detained at a Russian airport on charges of transporting illegal electronic cigarette cartridges with marijuana oil in her luggage.
In August of the same year, she was sentenced to nine years in prison. The famous basketball player was able to return to her homeland after US President Joe Biden agreed to exchange the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout for Greiner.
Greiner spent a total of 300 days in a Russian prison. She remembered the moment when she was detained at the Moscow airport.
“My life is ending at this point,” Greiner recalled, denying that she had imported an electronic cigarette cartridge containing marijuana oil into Russia.
She also gave an insight into life in a Russian prison: “I was very scared of everything. There were so many unknowns. You had to do what you had to do to survive. There was a huge bloodstain on my mattress. I had no soap or toilet paper.”
Until the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was the destination for many American basketball players during the WNBA offseason, as the salary there was several times higher than in the homeland.
