News

The Moscow Interregional Transport Office of the Investigative Committee continues the investigation opened against acting deputy head of Vnukovo customs – head of Vnukovo customs checkpoint Roman Kurzenkov, acting head of special customs procedure office No 4 Mikhail Fast, deputy head of special customs procedure office No 3 Aleksei Plitin, chief state customs inspector Igor Kudryashov and other unknown officials of Vnukovo customs. They are charged with a crime under Part 3, item “c” of Article 286 of the RF Penal Code (abuse of authority entailing grave consequences).

Another accomplice, the deputy head of Vnukovo customs checkpoint (for cargoes) Vyacheslav Latskikh has also been apprehended on the suspicion of the said crime. A court has ruled to place him in custody pending trial.

According to investigators, Kurzenkov together with Latskikh and some other so far unidentified officials of Vnukovo customs organized a channel for importing goods by passengers via the green corridor in Vnukovo customs checkpoint. To arrange for the channel to work, he also involved Fast, Plitin and Kudryashov who were aware that their actions would be beyond their authority and they were not to commit them under any circumstances.

From 7 January to 3 March 2016, 12 passengers of the flight from Istanbul to Moscow illegally imported goods to the Customs Union via the said channel.

In addition, Kurzenkov while not having any authority to inspect the goods, on the said days personally checked the passengers of the said flight and held the officials off the green corridor. By doing this he prevented them from seeing that the passengers were illegally importing goods.

On 4 March 2016, Plitin and Kudryashov while on duty at the green corridor let pass 13 passengers of the said flight who had on them some baggage with Turkish-made goods weighing more than 50 kg. On the same day the goods were confiscated and sent for a merchandising examination. According to an expert the goods were new, they were women’s clothes packed on the factory with identical code numbers worth almost 7 million rubles and weighing almost 800 kg.

The investigators have organized a set of necessary investigative and search operations to collect the evidence, including that against other accomplices. The investigation is ongoing.