Russian Police Arrest Phone Retail Staff over Smuggling Allegations

Russia's dominant mobile phone retailer, Euroset says that it will vigorously defend allegations of phone smuggling and an alleged kidnapping by one of its employees. Investigators at the Russian Prosecutor General's Office detained two suspects, both apparently employees of the company.

The spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, Vladimir Markin said that the Euroset official had committed "a criminal act" against a former company employee in 2003.

Euroset co-founder, Timur Artemyev denied media reports that the company had engaged in smuggling phones without paying import duties - saying that as a large company it has no need to carry out such actions.

In 2006, the company was however indirectly involved in a smuggling case, when a large batch of Motorola phones, containing some 167,000 basic phones were apparently smuggled into the country and then sold to the retailer.

In a possibly unrelated issue, Moscow police with their identities hidden behind masks conducted a search of Euroset's head office on Tuesday morning - and took away a large quantity of paperwork.

"The law enforcement representatives were looking for tax documentation and were interested in the location of Euroset retail sales manager for Moscow Marina Kucherenko, Euroset co-owner Evgeny Chichvarkin and general director of OOO Euroset Mos-1 Natalia Florovskaya," a source told Kommersant.

Euroset operates outlets in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The company recently set up outlets in India.

Posted to the site on 3rd September 2008