In the Rivne region, the police found 42 kilograms of amber in the possession of a pickup truck driver.
The approximate value of the stones at the prices of the "black" market is $3 thousand, the Rivne Oblast Police reports on Facebook.
The press service said that the violations were discovered during the inspection of the car at the checkpoint. The policemen found bags in the luggage compartment, which, according to preliminary suspicion, contained amber.
It is noted that the driver, a 49-year-old resident of the city of Korosten, refused to show their contents to law enforcement officers. Therefore, the investigative and operative group documented the crime according to the preliminary legal qualification of Part 1 of Article 240-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal transportation of amber). They sent a petition to the court to impound the vehicle.
"During the search of the car, law enforcement officers discovered and seized "sunny" stones of different factions, with a total weight of 42 kilograms," the press service said.
Uncontrolled amber mining destroys forests and entire ecosystems. Usually "black" diggers do not follow the mining technology and wash the amber with motorized pumps. Because of this, underground water drainage channels are destroyed in the soil and the microclimate of the earth changes.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in the territory of the Varas district in the Rivne region, law enforcement officers caught three illegal amber diggers red-handed.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, thousands of hectares of land have been damaged in several regions of Ukraine due to illegal amber mining, forests and swamps have been destroyed, rivers have been polluted, and the hydrological regime has changed.
