In Transcarpathia, the court made a decision regarding the special confiscation of 223 kg of amber worth almost 3.9 million hryvnias as state revenue.
24 bags of stones without any documents were found in the car of a Volhynian in December 2018, the Transcarpathian Regional Prosecutor's Office reports on Facebook.
It is noted that the violations were discovered during the inspection of the car. Subsequently, Amber was arrested as part of criminal proceedings for:
- Part 2 of Article 240 of the Criminal Code (illegal extraction of minerals of national significance (amber) committed by a group of persons in a prior conspiracy);
- Article 198 of the Criminal Code (acquisition, receipt, storage or sale of property obtained by crime).
Prosecutors explained that during the pre-trial investigation, the driver could not explain the origin of the amber and did not have any documents for it, and those involved in the direct extraction of minerals were not identified.
They said that the prosecutor's office appealed to the court with a request to decide the fate of physical evidence. The decision of the Uzhhorod City and District Court has already entered into force.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that 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.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, amber mining is planned to begin on the border of the Rivne Nature Reserve in the area of the largest swamp massifs of Ukraine, Syra Pogonya. The Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources agreed to put the site up for auction, although it had previously agreed to bequeath this territory.
