UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 15, 2015. Ural Customs Administration instituted 71 criminal lawsuits in the nine months of 2015, which was 8% less than a year earlier, their press service reports.

21 cases have to do with customs duty evasion (overall damage 93.5m RUR).

14 criminal suits are related to smuggling of strategic goods and resources such as timber, precious and semiprecious stones (overall damage over 137.7m RUR).

8 suits involve charges of illegal foreign currency transactions; damage is estimated at 168.9m RUR for illegal transfer of money onto non-residents’ accounts and at 753m RUR for foreign currency not transferred back to residents’ accounts following an invalid or a fictitious deal.

3 suits involve charges of illegal cash transfer (overall damage 4.7m RUR).

Customs officers also confiscated 2,852.8 grams of drugs and 665.405 grams of substances between January and September; this resulted in 10 criminal actions.