KHABAROVSK. Aug 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian police and customs services have blocked a channel for smuggling Russian timber to China in the Far Eastern Federal District.
The group of smugglers included citizens of Russia and China, a source with the Interior Ministry department for the Far Eastern Federal District told Interfax on Wednesday.
"Residents of the Celestial Empire [China] organized the purchase of expensive unprocessed timber, primarily oak, ash tree, and lime tree for cash from loggers in the Khabarovsk territory and its smuggling to China," it said.
In filling out customs forms, the members of the criminal group provided unauthentic information on the timber's origin, the source said. To conceal the unlawful origin of this timber, the smugglers used identification details of organizations under their control to draw up fictitious accounting documents describing the cargo's transportation, he said.
"So, the timber purchased this way gained legal status and was smuggled to China," the source said.
As many as 11 facts of illegal shipment of timber to China from Russia have been uncovered. The same number of criminal cases has been opened under Article 188 part 4 (smuggling), and all these cases have been merged to be handled by the Investigative Committee department of the Far Eastern Transportation Prosecutor's Office.