Who is the phone ringing for?

The Prosecutor General's Office continued visits to cellular retailers

The Prosecutor General's Office on Friday continued massive searches of the largest cell phone sellers. This time, investigators seized financial documentation in the offices of three companies - Tsifrograd, Betalink and Dixis. These events, as noted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are being carried out as part of an investigation into a scandalous criminal case dating back two years regarding telephone smuggling. However, other cell phone sellers believe that the story of the searches may be connected to a completely different matter.

The Prosecutor General's Office began its offensive actions in the middle of last week. First, investigators searched the workplaces and apartments of Euroset top managers. Then it was the turn of the management of Betalink, Dixis and Tsifrograd. Operational measures were carried out both in the offices of these companies and in their warehouses. This information was not officially confirmed by commercial structures. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General's Office stated that searches in the case of cell phone smuggling were still carried out. However, representatives of the investigation declined to make any other comments.

As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported, this criminal case was opened in August 2005 on the grounds of smuggling, after employees of the Investigative Committee (IC) and the “K” department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs detained a large consignment of mobile and radiotelephones worth about $10 million. During the investigation, it was established that the goods were delivered by cargo planes to the terminals of Sheremetyevo Airport from Finland and Germany, then the cargo arrived at the temporary storage warehouses of the airport, and from there, using forged documents, it was moved to an internal warehouse outside the customs control territory. According to the investigation, the smuggling was allegedly processed using fictitious documents at a price reduced several times through front companies registered with lost passports. Later, the investigation came to the conclusion that the smuggled electrical equipment was allegedly sold through large Moscow companies - Euroset, Dixis, Ultra Star and Severen. As a result, eight businessmen were charged with smuggling, three of whom fled abroad. On April 21, 2006, operatives detained the alleged organizer of the phone smuggling channel - deputy general director of Moscow VAT-TSV LLC Valery Krasovsky, and another article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was added to all the accused - organization of a criminal community. At the same time, the Prosecutor General’s Office took over the case from the Investigative Committee, which, after a long lull, again decided to disturb the telephone dealers.

It is noteworthy that the obvious reluctance of both the investigation and the companies of interest to explain anything in the current situation has given rise to a new version of these events. Some businessmen working in the cell phone market have suggested that in fact the searches are not related to the two-year-old smuggling case, but to the recently flared scandal about the sale of illegally seized electrical equipment. “It is unlikely that now you can find any “interesting” documents in the case of two years ago, especially since massive searches were carried out even then,” one of the managers of a company selling cell phones expressed his opinion. - Most likely, this situation is being used as an excuse to calmly receive documents on the sale of confiscated devices by companies. This is more likely to be true, given the fact that a number of those involved in this story were associated with the trade in confiscated goods.”

Alexey IVLEV