The Interior Ministry reports that the Police have seized more than 1.2 million bottles of counterfeit perfume and eau de toilette worth $5.7 million that apparently were imported from Poland.

Last week the police searched the premises of a Russian firm that had been importing and selling fake perfume, a spokesman for the ministry’s Economic Security Department said. The ministry didn’t identify the firm, saying only that it was located on Rostovskaya Naberezhnaya in Moscow.

The toiletries with “obvious signs of counterfeiting” were found in the firm’s warehouse, the spokesman said. More than 60,000 units of fake perfume products were also found.

Judging by the fact that it was ready when it was imported, the perfume was probably made in Poland. The ministry said it had found evidence of sales of the fake goods bearing trademarks of “famous domestic and foreign cosmetics companies” in more than 30 of the country’s regions.

The police have also seized 33 fake stamps that counterfeiters attested came from the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, the Moscow city government’s education department, a Procter & Gamble representative, and from Russian, British, French, Belgian, German and Ukrainian transportation and trading companies, among others.

(THE MOSCOW TIMES)

Text 4

CHAMPAGNE COUPLE JAILED

(by Stuart Baird)

A couple who led a champagne lifestyle on the proceeds of cocaine smuggling were jailed for 15 years at Manchester Crown Court.

Ronald and Sylvia Benn, both aged 40, had been found guilty of conspiracy to smuggle class “A” drugs following an extensive investigation by the North West National Investigation Service. Judge Anthony Hammond ordered Ronald Benn to serve nine years in jail and Sylvia six.

Outbound Customs at Hull prompted the investigation after stopping the Benns and finding £62,000 in their car, money which the couple could not show was legally theirs.

NIS investigation, conducted under case officer Ian Gallagher, revealed that despite the couple being heavily in debt in 1993, they had seen a remarkable upturn in their fortunes. All their debts were cleared, they bought BMW and Mercedes cars with cash, hired a butler, enjoyed holidays abroad and turned their home into a "palace", complete with underground garage.

But forensic evidence showed that cash found in the home and their cars was heavily impreg­nated with cocaine, and the dust bag in their vacuum cleaner con­tained significant amounts of the drug.

The lawyer, representing Sylvia Benn in court, said the case was a tragedy for her as she would be separated from her two teenage daughters, one of whom had a disability. The other had become ill through stress duу to the case.

Judge Hammond told the cou­ple: “Serious offences call for serious sentences and this is a very serious offence indeed. It involved substantial and numer­ous importations of cocaine, although there was no actual drug seizure. You were involved in a plot to import cocaine. You exported the currency to purchase drugs in Holland and, I have no doubt, bought drugs there." He added that they were involved in a "substantial" drugs operation which could have net­ted over £500,000 for those involved.

Case officer Ian Gallagher told the reporters: "This was an excellent result not only for the NIS but also those officers who made the original seizure in Hull, con­ducted the search of the house and the Manchester airport team who conducted the forensic tests."

A confiscation order against the Benns' property and cash is still being processed and the cou­ple will appear in court again next month.

(PORTCULLIS)

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DRUG POLICE SEIZE CANNABIS GARDEN

(by Garl Schreck)

Drag police have arrested a Moscow region man on suspicion of growing co­pious amounts of cannabis in his apart­ment and selling it to the teenage

pa­trons of a dance club that he operates nearby. Officers from the regional branch of the Federal Drug Control Service arrested the man in his apart­ment in the city of Voskresensk after receiving a tip that he was cultivating large amounts of cannabis, Drug Control spokeswoman said.

Upon searching the apartment, the po­lice discovered indoor growing equip­ment — including heat lamps and auto­matic watering devices — and learned that the suspect had tapped an outdoor power line in an apparent attempt to save money on his electricity bill.

Police confiscated 84 cannabis plants along with 190 grams of marijuana and a stash of hashish. Police also confiscated several packages of dif­ferent sorts of hemp seeds — a verita­ble starter's kit for growing marijuana — that the suspect had apparently re­ceived in the mail from abroad.

The suspect, who is reported to be 35 years old, has been charged with possession of a large amount of an illegal substance. A con­viction carries up to 10 years in prison. Police were preparing to also charge the suspect with selling the marijuana and hashish to teenagers who frequented a dance club that he ran in Voskresensk. They declined to identify the club and to comment on the tip that led the police to the suspect. "We are still trying to establish the entire network of dealers before we charge him with dealing," the official said. "There was too much in the apartment for him to sell all by himself."

Cannabis gardeners were rare but not unheard of in the Moscow region. The police have had about five such cases in the last six months. Separately, drug police on the same day detained a Moscow region teacher on suspicion of selling drugs to his students. The 35-year-old man was carrying 1.6 kilograms of opiates when he was ar­rested.

(THE MOSCOW TIMES)

Text 6

POLICE CALL FOR BOOZE BAN ON FLIGHTS

(by Anna Malpas)

Following a series of drunken brawls and hijack attempts by airline passen­gers, a senior Interior Ministry official called for a complete ban of alcohol on flights.

Head of the ministry's transport security depart­ment said the ban would be consistent with existing laws banning alcohol con­sumption in public places and should be implemented on domestic and interna­tional flights.

All of the arguments and aggressive behavior of passengers are linked to the use of alcohol. Drunken passengers are involved in hundreds of onboard incidents each year on Russian airlines, many of which do not result in police intervention.

Transport police registered 50 cases of aggressive be­havior by passengers aboard planes last year. Transport police are already stop­ping visibly intoxicated passengers from boarding planes.

In October, a drunken passenger on a Turkish Airlines flight to St. Peters­burg tried to hijack the plane, claim­ing he was carrying a bomb. Passengers overpowered him after he handed over a note with his demands.

Aeroflot does not support an alco­hol ban aboard its planes, calling instead for tougher punishments for inebriated passengers, airline spokeswoman said. The airline wants to increase fines for onboard drunkenness and hooligan­ism and introduce the possibility of jail time for unruly passengers, as in other countries. Drunken passengers who disobey flight staff now pay a "ridiculous" fine of 1,000 rubles ($29).

Passengers are not allowed to drink alcohol purchased in duty-free stores on board, a rule frequently disregarded by travelers on Russian airlines. Flight staff can only warn them of this rule verbally and hand them over to police at the end of the flight if they fail to comply.

While most drunken incidents on Russian flights are sparked by passen­gers, there have been cases of flight at­tendants overindulging. In one incident in July 2004, passen­gers on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to the west Siberian town of Nizhnevar­tovsk said three male flight attendants got drunk and beat up a passenger who complained about poor service.

Aeroflot passengers on a Moscow-New York flight in late December re­fused to let the plane leave the airport after becoming concerned that the pilot was drunk when he had trouble making the welcome-aboard announcement. Aeroflot, which replaced the pilot af­ter an hour long standoff with the pas­sengers, says subsequent tests showed that the pilot was not drunk but might have suffered a stroke shortly before the flight.

(THE MOSCOW TIMES)

Text 7

FALCON SMUGGLERS CAUGHT AT RUSSIAN BASE

In kyrgyzstan

(REUTERS)

Investigators have seized 127 rare falcons worth an estimated $5 million that were being smuggled to Syria from a Russian military air base in Kyrgyzstan.

When investigators moved in, the birds hidden in boxes, were being loaded on to a passenger plane which was about to fly to Syria from the air base located near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

It is still unclear how the passenger plane had got into the military base. An Il-18 with a Russian crew, had been chartered by a local firm, Phoenix. A special investigation will be conducted to clarify this.

The birds had not been fed for two days and one of them had a broken leg. They are now recovering in a nursery and will be later returned to their natural habitat.

The Russian military, which rents the air base from the Kyrgyz government to help fight international terrorism, said it had nothing to do with the smuggling.

The ancient art of hunting with birds is still practiced in Arab states and enthusiasts spend large amounts of money on rare birds of prey, often smuggled from other countries.

(THE MOSCOW TIMES)

Text 8

DIPLOMAT ACCUSED OF SMUGGLING

(by Kevin O’Flynn)

A U.S. diplomat is being investigated by Domodedovo Airport police on suspicion of trying to smuggle 75 rare Soviet posters out of the country.

Louis O’Neill, a U.S. citizen and head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission to Moldova, was stopped at Domodedovo on March 16 with five tubes stuffed with Soviet propaganda posters from the 1920s hidden in his suitcase, Foreign Ministry and customs officials said.

The posters were confiscated, and O’Neill, who had diplomatic immunity, was allowed to fly out of Russia. The case has been classified as a smuggling attempt and is being investigated by transport police at Domodedovo. The crime is punishable by up to seven years in prison and 1 million ruble fine (about $38,600).

The posters O’Neill was trying to take out of the country included ones “that had museum value and were national treasures”, Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement on the ministry’s web site.

When asked what he had in his suitcase, O’Neill said he only had personal belongings, a map and work documents.

Anyone traveling with artworks is required to apply for a permit to take it out the country, said a spokesman for the Federal Service for Media Law Compliance and Cultural Heritage, the government agency that decides whether artwork or antiques are allowed out of the country.

Among the posters in O’Neill’s case were works by artists Dmitry Moor and Viktor Deni, Soviet artists who made some of the most famous propaganda posters of the 1920s. One of the most famous Moor’s posters is the one that shows a Red Army soldier pointing out of the poster with the question “Have You Signed Up as a Volunteer?” underneath.

It is difficult to estimate how much the posters might be worth, said the art director at Sovkom auction house, which specializes in Soviet art. The value depends on the poster’s condition and how rare it is. Prices can range from $100 to $1,000, though one poster was sold at Sovkom recently for $5,000. The investigator said O’Neill had been planning to sell the posters, worth up to $100,000.

Komsomolskaya Pravda cited an unidentified investigator as saying O’Neill was under surveillance even before he was stopped at the airport and that authorities had taped his telephone discussions with dealers in Soviet posters.

“I’m an ambassador with the OCSE, I have a diplomatic passport, so let’s not search me, O’Neill said when stopped at the airport. “I want to sit on the plane and finish eating my apple.” O’Neill called the accident a provocation when he flew back to Chisinau.

(THE MOSCOW TIMES)

Text 9

CONVENTION TO COMBAT FAKE MEDICINE SIGNED

(by Anatoly Medetsky)

Russia, France, Germany and several other mostly European countries signed the first-ever international treaty to combat the growing multibillion-dollar counterfeit drugs industry.

The Council of Europe-sponsored Medicrime Convention, signed in Moscow, obliges signatory states to criminalize a broad range of activities that make possible the sale of fake medicines that harm patients and deprive legal producers of revenues.

Health and Social Development Minister, who signed the treaty on behalf of Russia, said the government would beef up penalties for the crimes to comply with the new requirements. The convention introduces minimum standards for the criminal law of the signatory countries.

«The global trend has been that these crimes were often not considered as serious enough to merit criminal law measures».

Ambassadors and diplomats of Austria, Finland, Italy, Israel, Iceland, Portugal, Switzerland and Ukraine have signed the treaty. It establishes as criminal offenses such activities as the manufacturing of counterfeit medical products (including equipment), their supply and offers to supply, trafficking and the falsification of related documents.

In an Interpol operation last month, law enforcement officers seized more than 2.5 million doses of fake and unlicensed medicines in 79 countries. The drugs were being sold on pharmacy web sites that were run, hosted or facilitated by Russians or Chinese, while most of the counterfeit products came from Chinese suppliers.

According to the World Health Organization, counterfeit medical products sometimes account for more than 50 percent of market value in developing countries. In some parts of Europe they represent between 6 percent and 20 percent of the market. That number is less than 1 percent in developed countries where there is efficient regulatory control.

(THE MOSCOW TIMES)

Text 10

COUNTERFEIT KALASHNIKOV MAKERS COME UNDER FIRE

(by Hannah Gardner and Ellen Pinchuk)

The government is fighting to stop the unlicensed manufacture of the Kalashnikov assault rifle in other countries, 60 years after the weapon went into production.

Global production of the world’s most abundant firearm “creates the possibility in a series of countries to avoid responsibility for what is basically the production of counterfeit goods,” Finance Minister said in an interview. “We will, of course, fight for our rights.”

The country’s targeting of counterfeit Kalashnikovs underscores the success of the brand since Mikhail Kalashnikov first began to design a weapon while lying wounded in a hospital bed during World War II. In 1947, his work culminated in the AK-47, the most successful assault rifle in history, for which the Soviet Union granted production licenses to friendly states.

When the permits started expiring in the late 1980s and early 1990s, production continued unabated as the Soviet Union collapsed. Currently, there are about 30 factories worldwide, including plants in China, Poland and Bulgaria. Russia accounted for just 10 percent of global Kalashnikov production last year, said General Director of Izhevsk-based Izhmash, a factory that makes Kalashnikovs. “When you see that there’s a huge fight against piracy over CDs and DVDs, and in such an important area of production our rights are being violated, of course it’s insulting,” he said in an interview.

Rosoboronexport, the country’s state arms exporter, is working with governments to resolve the issue.

Russia is the world’s third-largest arms exporter, after the United States and France, and is the biggest supplier of weapons to developing nations, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service. Russia exported $6.5 billion of arms last year.

The government now plans to regain market share by promoting the homegrown values of Russian Kalashnikovs over foreign-made versions. The quality of machine guns made in Russia is much better. The Russian-made original carries a premium overseas, costing as much as five-times more than a non-Russian gun in Asia, Afghanistan and Latin America. Foreign-made weapons are “far inferior” to those produced in Russia, said Mikhail Kalashnikov, now 87. “We’ve tested them dozens of times and we see that it’s just cheap junk that should be thrown away,” he said.

(BLOOMBERG)