As reported by the Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor’s Office, the defendants, who had a license to collect paleontological materials in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, illegally purchased mammoth tusks from private Yakut prospectors. To obtain the export permit, they provided falsified documents that supposedly confirmed the legal origin of these valuables.
It was established that between December 2021 and December 2022, the defendants illegally transported 16 tons of mammoth tusks and their fragments from Russia to China and the Netherlands. Its total cost amounted to more than 113 million rubles.
A criminal case has been initiated under paragraph “c” of part 2 of article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Large-scale smuggling of cultural property by a group of persons through prior conspiracy.”
