Russians seize huge load of mobile phones smuggled from Finland and Germany
Hundreds of tonnes of electronics confiscated in Moscow
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A special unit of the Russian police has uncovered a massive electronics smuggling operation. The scheme reportedly involved the illegal import of mobile telephones, their components, and computer parts from Finland and Germany to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
Authorities have already seized about 300 tonnes - about ten truckloads - of electronics that were illegally brought into the country. The total value of the goods is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of euros.
The newspaper Kommersant estimates that there could be up to a million mobile phones among the contraband.
Investigating the case is a special unit of Russia’s Ministry of the Interior specialised in solving high-tech crime.
Gennadi Melnik, spokesman of the crime investigation committee in the Ministry of the Interior, told Helsingin Sanomat on Wednesday that the confiscated mobile phones include Nokia and SonyEricsson models.
Melnik also said that it is possible that the phones are counterfeits. He added that it is not known if the phones were bought in Finland and Germany, or if the two countries were merely points of transit.
Finnish customs authorities say that Russian officials have been in contact with them over mobile phone smuggling for a long time. The scam is primarily aimed at avoiding Russian import duties.
The operation has been very professional, involving the acquisition of stolen passports and the setting up of import companies under false names. Then they have flown the electronics to Moscow as ordinary air freight from Finland and Germany. In Moscow, the goods were temporarily kept at the customs terminal of Sheremetyevo Airport.
Taxes and duty payments were evaded by using forged import documents. The goods were marked as items of lesser value, such as ping pong balls or manhole covers.
No arrests have been made yet, but Russian police suspect that two large Moscow mobile phone wholesalers are involved in the scam. The Russian Ministry of the Interior says that customs officials were also involved in the illegal imports.
A Finnish customs expert who asked to remain anonymous was not surprised to hear of the giant haul. "Most electronics are imported into Russia illegally. The activity is so widespread that sooner or later someone had to get caught", the expert said.
"The only surprise was the amount of goods that were seized. Such large confiscations have not been made in Russia before. Hopefully this is a sign that a fight against illegal imports and corruption has begun in Russia. If this is the case, then it’s about time."
The expert says that illegal imports are a major problem for legitimate companies operating in Russia; the goods, for which no payment of taxes or import duties are made, are sold cheaper than legal goods.
This distorts competition, preventing the market from developing normally.
The head of Russia’s consumer protection agency Dmitri Janin told the financial journal Vedomosti on Wednesday that nine out of ten mobile handsets sold in Moscow have been imported illegally. They are usually sold in large electronics stores alongside legal imports.
Janin says that the illegal imports explain the massive discounts offered by mobile phone retailers in Russia.
Vedomosti writes that 24.3 million mobile phones were sold in Russia last year, with a retail value of more than EUR 3 billion.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 18.8.2005 - TODAY |
 Russians seize huge load of mobile phones smuggled from Finland and Germany
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