10 June 2004 12:12
Russian police confiscate gold illegally hallmarked at Assay Office
[Olga Kokorekina] Criminals involved in illegal sales of jewellery have been arrested in Moscow. Operatives
confiscated 30 kg of items of gold and precious stones to the value of 1.5m dollars. It is noteworthy that the items
were sold not on the black market but through Moscow's official retail network. Andrey Naumenkov has more
details.
[Passage omitted]
[Correspondent] Having searched storage units belonging to just three rank-and-file employees of the Assay
Inspectorate, operatives confiscated 30 kg of gold that was not registered in any documents. All items of jewellery had
foreign hallmarks. These items cannot be sold legally. Russian hallmarks were also stamped here, during working hours at
that.
[Passage omitted]
A jeweller's shop in Dubininskaya Ulitsa [street] served as a temporary warehouse. Gold items were delivered
there from other countries and then transferred to the Assay Inspectorate. Several hundred kilograms of items of gold
were handled every month.
The gold was presumably brought in from Turkey. [ Passage omitted] Nobody yet knows how hundreds of kilograms of gold
items found their way to the building of the Assay Inspectorate.
[Passage omitted]
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