“Really, it was that hot today!” By the way, “eggs” in Russian slang are “testicles”… you catch it, don’t you?
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On Thursday, Swiss customs authorities said that they’d arrested a bird specialist who smuggled the eggs of protected parrots in his underwear and travelled the globe trading in rare species. In a statement, the customs service said that they thought that the man, whom it didn’t identify, had trafficked over 150 eggs from endangered parrots protected by international law, as well as rare pheasant species. They busted the man, a Swiss citizen who was also a legal bird trader, at Zürich Kloten Airport in 2010 with 25 eggs hidden in his underwear as he returned from Brazil. The customs service explained that it was only now revealing details of the case because of the secrecy surrounding the probe. Investigators managed to establish that, thanks to a solid international network of contacts, the man managed to smuggle more than 150 eggs to buyers in Indonesia, Thailand, and Mexico. The total value of the contraband eggs was 65,000 Swiss Francs (2.3 million Roubles. 72,000 USD. 74,000 CAD. 75,000 AUD. 53,000 Euros. 45,000 UK Pounds), adding that it wasn’t possible to establish where they came from. Investigators said that the man also had an aviary of several hundred birds, including endangered species. The Swiss veterinary service also seized seven rare parrots from an accomplice, with an estimated value of 8,000 Swiss Francs (283,000 Roubles. 8,900 USD. 9,100 CAD. 9,200 AUD. 6,500 Euros. 5,500 UK Pounds). The two men face heavy fines for trafficking in endangered species.
17 October 2013
Voice of Russia World Service
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_17/Man-caught-smuggling-rare-parrot-eggs-in-underwear-6710/
Voices from Russia 
Junta Militants Crack Down on Food Smugglers Sending Food to the DNR
Tags: civil unrest, DNR, Donetsk People's Republic, Novorossiya, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, smuggler, smuggling, Ukraine, Ukrainian Civil War, war and conflict
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Junta militants are cracking down on businessmen smuggling food to the DNR from junta-occupied territory. Anonymous sources close to the parties involved told us, “On our last trip to Mariupol for supplies, instead of one day, it dragged on for several days, because of stops at Ukrainian checkpoints. On the way back, on a bypass road running through a field, I witnessed Ukrainian soldiers brutally beating another trader like me, just ahead of me on the road”. Another smuggler said, “For me, the last attempt to get through their roadblocks led to a pow-wow with them, which led to them pawing over my stuff; I had to pay them ‘taxes’ on the spot. I had to let them do it… they made it clear that if I made a fuss about it, they’d shoot me. I knew that they weren’t joking about their threat… I know about more than one other case that had such a sad ending”.
The junta blockaded food supplies from the Ukraine to the DNR from February 2015. Because of this, food wholesalers in the DNR increasingly oriented their business to suppliers from Russia. According to the DNR Ministry of Economic Development, the volume of such trade is growing rapidly… in February, the DNR received 471 tonnes of food, in March, it received 5,000 tonnes, and the Ministry expects that the amount for April will be significantly higher than that.
27 April 2015
DAN Donetsk News Agency
http://dan-news.info/gumanitary/ukrainskie-siloviki-ustraivayut-oblavy-na-postavshhikov-prodovolstviya-v-dnr.html