Smuggling after bribe: a criminal case has been opened against a Yugra logger
Published: March 22, 2024 08:51
Tyumen customs officers have opened a criminal case on the fact of smuggling timber to Uzbekistan. We will remind you that at the end of last year the driver of one of the trucks offered a bribe to a customs officer for “passing” illegal timber. For 150,000 rubles he hoped to avoid inspection of three heavy trucks with strategically important resources harvested in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra. The bribe-giver was detained in the Kurgan region and handed over to the investigative authorities, who opened a criminal case against him. The court found the man guilty, he was convicted and fined 600,000 rubles
The customs inspection confirmed that in fact, three trucks from the territory of Russia were planned to export almost three dozen cubic meters more timber than it was stated in the shipping documents. In addition, under the cylindrical timber products declared in the declarations, the cargo compartments actually contained roughly debarked logs, the export of which is prohibited through the Petukhovo checkpoint. Such timber can be exported only through the checkpoints defined by the Russian Government with a phytosanitary certificate, which was not in the package of documents submitted to customs
Officers of the operational and investigative department of the Tyumen Customs identified the organizer of the illegal export of strategically important resources to Uzbekistan. He turned out to be the director of the Yugra organization, which is engaged in timber harvesting. The customs officers initiated criminal proceedings against him under Part 1 Article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (smuggling of strategically important resources). The businessman faces a penalty of imprisonment for up to 7 years with a fine of up to one million rubles
Maria Zakirova, press secretary of the Tyumen Customs