Pirated Cigarettes Buried in Ryazan

A large batch of counterfeit cigarettes worth about $5 million was destroyed in Ryazan. At the city's industrial landfill, the cigarettes were dumped into a pit, driven over by bulldozers and graders, and the ditch was then backfilled.

According to Alexander Vorobyov, press secretary at the Head Directorate for Economic Crimes of the Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs, the counterfeited cigarettes with well-known trademarks were produced at the Shilovo Tobacco Factory, a municipal unitary enterprise. The criminals began producing the cigarettes without the agreement of rights holders in the summer of 2001.

The destroyed batch of counterfeit products was the largest in the past ten years, reported RIA Novosti.