Chinese nationals smuggle military gear from Russia using loopholes

Chinese citizens have begun actively smuggling body armour, tactical backpacks, military uniforms and other equipment from Russia to study them and manufacture cheaper replicas. Source: Russian propaganda outlet Izvestia, citing law enforcement sources Details: One of the sources stated: "There has been an increase in the number of illegal operations related to the export of military and dual-use goods".

Various loopholes are used for this, particularly in postal services.

The Moscow Times reported that in mid-April, law enforcement in Moscow detained a Chinese national immediately after he posted two load-bearing vests, including a Ratnik model with a 6Sh117 patrol backpack. It was later revealed that the same individual had previously shipped two 6B45 general-purpose body armours, combat backpacks and other military gear to China. In December last year, another Chinese student was detained in Moscow for smuggling military equipment.

The 27-year-old was keeping body armours, bullet casings, armour plates and other gear in his university dormitory.

During interrogation, he claimed to have legally purchased all the items on classified advertisement websites.

Background: Russia's financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring, is set to start forming a registry of "suspicious" cryptocurrency wallets belonging to Russian citizens by adding "digital currency address identifiers".

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