The officers of Yekaterinburg Railway Customs Post and Yekaterinburg Customs Intellectual Property Rights Department detected a set of radio recorders worth 760,000 RUR altogether that a smuggler illegally imported to the Russian Federation in August 2008, the spokesperson for the Ural Customs Administration reports. An investigation followed, whereupon it was revealed that 2,000 radio recorders bearing Panasonic trademarks were delivered to Russia from the United Arab Emirates by a Yekaterinburg-based firm. The whole shipment was supposed to have been transported to Kazakhstan by railway later on. However, the owner of the goods turned out not to have any agreement with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd, the Panasonic trademark bearer, that could allow the company to import and sell Panasonic’s original products. Therefore the goods were confiscated and transported to a temporary storage warehouse.

All in all, Yekaterinburg Customs’ officers have detected some 66,000 counterfeited items since the beginning of the year.