adam wrote:

MOSCOW, June 13 — On March 29, agents of the Interior Ministry seized 167,500 mobile phones that Motorola had shipped into Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, dragging the company into the Kafkaesque world where Russian justice intersects with business.

Wide-ranging coverage of Russia and the former Soviet republics, updated by The Times's Moscow bureau.
Vitaly Belousov/Itar-Tass

The Interior Ministry ground up 49,991 Motorola phones on April 25. About 117,000 seized phones remain in the government's hands.

The phones were first declared counterfeits, then contraband, then a health hazard, and now they are evidence in a criminal investigation focused, again, on suspected smuggling.

the wild east

The real lesson being: never attempt to import anything to Russia on the level. Actually obeying procedure and 'the law' is equivalent to not obeying the unwritten rules. If you don't know who to pay off, you can't play. Strange, but true.

Customs in Russia are equivalent to extortion.

RE: Phone Seizure Seen as Example of Russian Corruption - New York Times