News

The Moscow Region investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have initiated a criminal case against two citizens of Vietnam. They are suspected of a crime under paragraphs “a” and “b” of part 2 of article 238 of the RF Criminal Code (production, storage or carriage for the purpose of sale of goods which do not meet standards of safety to lives or health of consumers committed by an organized group).

According to investigators, the suspects without observing rules of appropriate registration provided for by the RF laws organized in the premises of the former plant in Zarechnaya Street in the town of Ivanteyevka manufacture of clothes including those for children up to 6 years old. In all they used for manufacturing 10 shops located in the former plant. The manufacture used wage labor of workers who had illegally arrived in the territory of the Russian Federation from Vietnam, China and other countries of Middle Asia. During the search conducted in presence of officials of Russian Federal Migration Service and Main Office for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption Activity of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the investigators found at the plant more than 700 citizens of Vietnam and Middle Asian countries who had no passports on them. The workers’ passports were later found on the suspects. Officials of the Migration Service established that apart from law-abiding citizens of Vietnam, the shop employed 280 illegal migrants who couldn’t show any documents at all.

Investigators during the interview of the workers found out that the foreigners were lured in Russia by promises of high wages, but in fact they received only 4-5 thousand rubles. The organization had a clear hierarchy. Shiftmen supervised order in the shop, carried out stocktaking of the products manufactured and sold. They were superior to technologists who manufactured models of patterns and pass them to heads of groups who then passed on the task to the seamstresses. Each group consisted of 10 up to 40 people. In addition, there was security who watched so that the workers did not skip the work and suppressed any attempts to complain the chiefs about the wages or working conditions. There were also unskilled laborers who worked as loaders, packers and drivers delivering the goods to markets. The shop worked round the clock, in 12-hour shifts. The workers’ documents were kept by a shiftman and were not given to the workers. Workers were prohibited to leave the shop.

The scale of the work by the clandestine shop can be measured by the number of products seized by the investigators: more than 80 tons of ready adult and children’s clothes, including those of famous labels and with a logo Sochi-2014, almost 500 sewing machines, dyes, curves and tags. Special equipment in the shops carried out sewing and dying of clothes which do not meet safety requirements and can entail damage to health and life, cause rash or itch. To manufacture the clothes the suspects used uncertified dying chemicals which had been illegally imported in the territory of the Russian Federation and did not meet the safety requirements. After washing the clothes faded and lost its form. The said products were sold at the markets in the Moscow Region and Moscow.

The suspects are under a written undertaking not to leave the place and behave properly. The investigation of the case is to be continued. necessary investigating operations are underway with operative support of Main Office for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption Activity to consolidate evidence and establish accomplices.