At the checkpoint of the Nizhneleninskoe Amurzet customs post of the Birobidzhan Customs, when registering individuals with the help of a canine with a dog, the bones of the Amur tiger were found at a Chinese citizen leaving Russia.
According to the Far Eastern Customs Administration, a resident of the Celestial Empire was well aware that he was carrying prohibited goods, so he packed the bones in a plastic bag and hid them under clothes. Despite this, the cynologist Olga Ipatova and the service dog of the ZiZi Spaniel breed helped to reveal this offense. During the examination it was found that the bones belong to the Amur tiger. Currently, a criminal case has been opened against a citizen of a neighboring state, an investigation is underway.
“Over the past 20 years, the standard of living in China has seriously increased, so even the average citizen of this country is financially capable of acquiring expensive body parts of animals, even rare and endangered species. That is why cases of so-called “everyday” contraband have become more frequent, when Chinese residents move goods not for resale unchanged, so that the client would be sure that this or that part of the animal’s body, but for personal consumption, with this approach often goods are transported to the processed form and can find it only the cynologist with a dog or special devices. In this regard, I would like to remind the pseudo-smugglers that modern examination methods make it possible to determine the presence of separate fragments of bones, but even molecules, in the product being moved, if, for example, a person has been in contact with prohibited parts of animals, including rare. We hope that the investigation will not be long, the entrance of which will succeed in identifying those who sold and possibly those who killed the tiger.” – comment Sergey Aramilev, Director of the Primorsky Branch of the Amur Tiger Center.
The offense occurred at the very end of February, but in the interests of the investigation, this information is being made public only now. For the illegal movement across the customs border of the Eurasian Economic Union of the Amur tiger and its body parts, criminal liability under Art. 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.