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Russia customs officers thwart 800 food smuggling attempts since embargo introduction

Administrative offence cases were opened only if false declarations were submitted, and in other cases the import of food batches into the country was just banned

© ITAR-TASS/Igor Ageenko

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MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. Russian customs units have thwarted more than 800 attempts at food smuggling into the country since the introduction of Russia’s response sanctions against the West, a Federal Customs Service (FCS) official said on Wednesday.

“Customs control has banned the import of a total of 818 batches, 139 administrative offence cases have been opened,” head of the FCS risk and operational control department Vyacheslav Goloskokov told Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the Customs Service 2014 exhibition on Wednesday.

In a conversation with reporters, he cited a number of examples when customs officers exposed, in particular, the smuggling of Dutch pork that was declared as mash from China. In another case, the customs officials prevented smuggling of unidentified cheese disguised as technical protein mix. There was also an attempt to smuggle into Russia milk powder from Poland under the guise of barium carbonate from China, Goloskokov said.

He said administrative offence cases were opened only if false declarations were submitted, and in other cases the import of food batches into the country was just banned.

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