UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 18, 2019. Ural Customs’ officers identified and detained more than 400,000 international postal shipments with restricted or banned types of goods inside in 2018, the customs’ press service reports.

‘The items in question are brass knuckles, bludgeons, watches, lighters, hidden camera/recorder glasses, fish nets, pills/lozenges containing super-potent substances, and goods emitting strong ionizing radiation. That said, the overall share of such parcels only comes to under 0.6% of all international shipments all in all,’ the press service says.

According to Head of Ural Customs Maxim Chmora, there have been fewer instances of restricted/forbidden items getting shipped internationally lately.

‘The ‘best-filtered’ shipments currently arrive from Harbin. This is the result of four years of our joint efforts. Our partners in Harbin check the parcels leaving China for compliance with the weight and size limits and import bans for Russia,’ Chmora said.

Chmora also said that Russian customers shopping online are often unaware of the existing bans and restrictions.

‘This is why Russia’s Federal Customs Service is working to integrate the reference materials for the Eurasian Economic Union’s customs regulations into the online shopping platforms’ websites to make sure the customers get informed about all the possible limitations when they place their order,’ Maxim Chmora said.