Russia Seizes Large Haul Of Smuggled Amber Bound For Lithuania

Russia's investigative committee in the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea said on Friday it had seized half a tonne of amber gemstone that was mined illegally to be smuggled to Lithuania

KALININGRAD (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2022) Russia's investigative committee in the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea said on Friday it had seized half a tonne of amber gemstone that was mined illegally to be smuggled to Lithuania.

"Nine suspects have been arrested up to date, including the criminal group's ringleaders. Their homes and other sites are being raided," the committee said on social media.

The suspects were arrested as they tried to smuggle amber across the border.

They did not have papers on them that would prove that the load, worth an estimated 20 million rubles ($319,000), had been obtained legally.

Kaliningrad investigators believe that the smugglers had mined the fossilized wood resin near the coastal resort of Svetlogorsk. Waters off Kaliningrad shore hold the world's largest deposit of recoverable amber.

Russia criminalized illegal mining for amber in 2019. Currently, amber is mined on the industrial scale by a single Russian state company.