On May 15, during a joint operation by employees of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department and the Office of the Organization of Inquiry, the State Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow to verify the operational information received, objects of the animal world allegedly belonging to species listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation were found and seized.
The full list of items seized includes tanned skin of the Amur tiger, the head of a wild animal without the skin in frozen form, 59 teeth and 4 bones, also allegedly belonging to the Amur tiger and at least 15 kilograms of meat of various wild animals.
During the events, the tenant of the apartment was also detained - a citizen of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, who, most likely, owns terrible finds. Currently, the issue of initiating a criminal case against him under article 258.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is being resolved, and an inspection is being carried out to establish the legality of his presence in the Russian Federation.
The withdrawn objects of the animal world are sent for forensic zoological examination to establish the species.
“Before the examination, it is premature to draw any conclusions. However, if the majority of the detected parts of the bodies of animals have questions on the species and not only, then the skin of the tiger is an indisputable fact, which is the basis for initiating a criminal case on the grounds of the crime, provided for by Art. 258.1 of the Criminal Code, - comments on the situation Aramilev Sergey director of the Primorsky branch of the Amur Tiger Center - In the course of the investigation, police officers and experts will have to establish quite a lot of circumstances that will determine the qualifications of the offense and resolve the issue of bringing the defendants to criminal responsibility. It is extremely important to understand what animal the seized head, bones of the skeleton and teeth belong to, whether they are related to the skin of a tiger or belong to other animals. Conclusions about whether animals whose parts of the body were found grown in captivity or taken out of the wild, along with other materials, should not be disclosed in order to ensure the completeness and comprehensiveness of the investigation, taking measures to identify other persons related to the crime, and proper legal assessment of their actions. It is worth noting that for the citizens of Vietnam eating the tiger's body parts, as well as their use, for example in medicine, traditionally and precisely this led to the almost complete disappearance of the tiger from the territory of their country. The government of Vietnam only in 2010 seriously took up the solution of this problem, but it is obvious that in such a short period it is difficult to achieve significant success.”