“Within investigation and search operations, policemen of the Division for Economic Security and Combating the Corruption of Intermunicipal Administration 'Lyuberetskoye' of the Russian MIA carried out a check at a fur dressing and dyeing enterprise located in urban locality Malakhovka,” said Russian MIA official representative Irina Volk.

In the course of the inspection in the workshop, policemen detected and confiscated three undressed skins. According to the expert's opinion, those were skins of white bears classified as especially valuable wild animals and registered in the Russian Red Book.

The Inquiry Division of the Intermunicipal Administration of the Russian MIA initiated a criminal case on that fact according to Article 258.1 “Illegal hunting for and trafficking of especially valuable wild animals and aquatic biological resources belonging to species registered in the Russian Red Book” of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The sanction under this article provides for up to three-year imprisonment and a fine of up to 1,000,000 rubles.

At the moment, the police carry out a complex of measures aiming to establish all circumstances of the affair, the damage caused to the state interests protected by law, and malefactors implicated in illegal poaching and smuggling of animal skins.

Download the official comment given by Russian MIA official representative Irina Volk

Download the video about the operations