MINSK: Belarus’ customs authorities have seized more than 2,000 tonnes of sanctioned goods to the tune of Br37 billion since the beginning of the year, Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian State Customs Committee Vladimir Orlovsky told media.
“This year, the customs authorities detected 650 offences regarding the transportation of the goods from this group. We seized more than 2,000 tonnes of the goods worth almost Br37 billion. Almost 4,000 tonnes of goods totaling about Br28 billion were arrested,” said Vladimir Orlovsky.
According to him, the adoption of comprehensive measures to prevent the smuggling of the goods embargoed in Russia through the territory of Belarus is one of the tasks for the time being. The Belarusian State Customs Committee in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies conducts activities to detect and suppress the attempts to import illegally or re-export through Belarus the goods subject to the Russian embargo.
“To this end, an interstate inter-agency working group has been set up to coordinate the actions of the supervisory bodies of the executive authorities of Russia and Belarus,” said Vladimir Orlovsky. In addition, the Belarusian customs authorities have launched the operational customs which would help raise this work to a higher level, Vladimir Orlovsky noted.
He also reported that the Russian and Belarusian customs authorities share the information about all customs-processed goods. When the Belarusian customs authorities process the goods for transit, they notify the Russian colleagues about sending these goods to the customs office of destination. Thus the Russian customs learn about such products almost immediately.
