Sheremetyevo corridor

Tens of thousands of smuggled diamonds passed through customs using special passes

The trial of smuggling into Russia an unprecedented batch of precious stones - almost 40 thousand sapphires, diamonds, emeralds and rubies - ended recently in the Golovinsky Court of Moscow. According to the Investigative Committee (IC) under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, which was in charge of this case, “cover” for the smugglers, carrying jewelry bypassing customs, was provided by none other than one of the deputy directors of Sheremetyevo-2 International Airport. However, he himself did not live to see the trial. Other participants in illegal deliveries received relatively short sentences. US citizen, vice-president of the Jaking trading company Yakov Blumenkranz was given three and a half years in prison with confiscation, and the general director of the Russian company Solun, Dmitry Sheremetyev, was given two years probation.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the organizer of the channel for smuggling sapphires, diamonds, emeralds and rubies to Russia was Yakov Blumenkranz. Until the early 70s, he lived in the USSR and worked as an artist in jewelry workshops, and then moved to the USA. Mr. Blumenkrantz settled in Brooklyn and continued to do what he loved. Soon he even managed to take the post of vice president of the Jaking company, specializing in the sale of jewelry. And since the mid-90s, FSB officers paid attention to him, who began to note the appearance of Mr. Blumenkranz in different parts of the world, where he carried out, as a rule, dubious transactions with precious stones.

The American began visiting Moscow frequently in 1998. Mr. Blumenkranz, as the intelligence services found out, met with the heads of jewelry stores, private craftsmen, and even tried to open his own company. But, unable to collect the package of necessary documents, he abandoned this idea and in 2000, according to the investigation, decided to engage in the illegal sale of valuables in Russia. The scheme of work was extremely simple. Mr. Blumenkranz bought stones cheaply almost all over the world (sapphires in Thailand, rubies in Burma, etc.), then flew to Moscow, smuggled the stones bypassing customs and sold them at dumping prices to private capital jewelers , small workshop, etc.

According to the Investigative Committee, Viktor Bushin, deputy director for operational production management of Sheremetyevo International Airport OJSC, helped him in illegal deliveries. Mr. Bushin had special passes that gave him unhindered passage through customs and border control at the airport, and Blumenkrantz decided to take advantage of this. He agreed with the deputy director of Sheremetyevo that he would also call from abroad and give the exact time of arrival of his flight. Bushin’s duties included meeting the foreigner at the plane’s steps, taking his package or wallet, carrying it through customs, and then returning it back. For each such operation, Blumenkranz paid Bushin only $200.

It is not known exactly how many such deliveries were made in 2000, but only during searches did investigators find: 17.7 thousand cut sapphires, 4 thousand cut rubies, 7.5 thousand cut emeralds, 4.5 thousand diamonds . Mr. Blumenkranz kept these treasures in a rented apartment, gradually distributing them to jewelry outlets. He handed over a significant part of the stones to the director of Solun LLC, Dmitry Sheremetyev, sold seven diamonds to the jeweler Ataev, and another nine to the master Nekrasov.

The end of the smuggling business came at the beginning of 2001. By that time, Viktor Bushin had come to the attention of the FSB, and his phones were wiretapped. On January 11, Blumenkranz contacted the deputy director of Sheremetyevo and asked to meet him at the Bangkok-Delhi-Moscow plane the next day. The jeweler handed Bushin a heavy purse, and when the latter returned it after customs, both were arrested. There were 8.5 thousand sapphires in the wallet. Soon, operatives detained Sheremetyev, Ataev and Nekrasov, but the cases against two of them were closed. Mr. Bushin died due to heart disease before the trial.

Alexander SHVAREV