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African Diplomats Smuggle $1Mln-Worth Laptops
Russian police have arrested three smugglers who exported computers to Russia under cover of African diplomats’ luggage. The Russian budget has lost dozens of million rubles in this murky Russian-African cooperation.
Three smugglers have been arrested on the suspicion of a large-scale smuggling following the court’s decision but have not been charged yet. The Federal Security Service’s economic security department has detected the crime a few months ago. Georgian-born Kochiev, 30, Traore Mamadou, 43, from Burkina Faso, and Russian Ovsyannikov, 43, were detained on May 16. Forms with official stamps of African embassies and signatures of high-ranking diplomats were found in the smugglers’ flats. The same day, a wagon with a $100,000 lot of Toshiba laptops was found in the central Moscow. The detainee did not deny that it was their consignment but insisted that the goods were meant for the Moscow embassy of an African country and therefore came under reduced tax duties.
An investigator of the case reported that the smuggled lot was not the first on. “Diplomatic mission of the half of the African continent” were engaged in the exports, he said mentioning Angola, Nigeria, Somali and Burkina Faso. The police also found a large consignment of LCD computer monitors, printers and laptops worth over $1 million at a warehouse in Moscow.
The Federal Customs Service said the smugglers underreported the cost of the imported goods by eight-ten times, apart from importing them with preference tariffs. The officials do not rule out that charges may also be leveled against customs officers in Moscow and diplomats from African countries who overlooked the abuse.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 19, 2006
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