Slovak customs officials confiscated more than 130 kilograms of what they suspect to be undeclared amber at the Vysne Nemecke border crossing from a vehicle driven by a Ukrainian with a Hungarian passenger inside, Slovak newspaper Michalovsky Korzar reported on Aug. 11.
Citing Michalovce customs office
spokeswoman Klara Baloghova, the Slovak newspaper reported that the minerals
were hidden in containers beneath the luggage compartment of the vehicle inside
three cement bags. The car had Slovak
license plate numbers.
“Overall, 130.386 kilograms of
minerals was found in the cavities of the vehicle of unknown origin in various
shapes, sizes and colors resembling amber,” Baloghová said. Slovakia’s
customs service didn’t immediately respond to an emailed inquiry by the Kyiv
Post.
The passengers didn’t declare the minerals,
didn’t submit evidence of their origin and value of the goods, the Slovak
customs official noted.
The case is currently under investigation.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry Arsen Avakov
estimates the size of the nation’s black
market for amber to be $500 million. Authorities say the gemstones are
mostly extracted in the northern areas of Zhytomyr, Rivne and Volyn oblasts in
a pine forest range known as Polissya.
Some 150-300
tons of amber is extracted yearly in Ukraine, of which only 3-4 tons is mined
legally, according to Ukraine’s environmental ministry.
On Aug. 4 a law
enforcement task force seized 2.6 tons of allegedly illegally mined amber in
Rivne Oblast preliminarily valued at $3 million, Avakov stated on his Facebook
page.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached
at [email protected].
