The Supreme Court protected the smuggler’s right to a car

The servants of Themis ruled that the car in his case cannot be considered an instrument of crime

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation prohibited the confiscation of the criminal’s car, which he got into after committing the crime. This decision was made as a result of considering the case of a smuggler who, together with his comrades, manually moved 150 thousand packs of cigarettes worth a total of 19.6 million rubles across the customs border of the EurAsEC.

The crime was committed in 2020. On a dark February night, attackers from the Rostov region in six UAZ vehicles drove up to the border between Russia and the DPR, which was then formally part of Ukraine. On the other side, three trucks with cigarettes were already waiting for them. The men loaded the contraband into their cars and tried to escape, but not everyone succeeded. The smugglers were noticed by border guards, and soon two of the attackers, Vanin and Zemin (surnames have been changed), were detained. The remaining cars were also subsequently discovered, but it was not possible to establish who was driving them. The caught accomplices received 3.5 years in a general regime colony and 500 thousand rubles each. fine, but Vanin’s car was also confiscated. The UAZ driven by Zemin belonged to Vanin’s mother-in-law, who was not detained and was a witness in the case.

Dissatisfied with this injustice, the smuggler appealed the court’s decision, but was unsuccessful until he reached the Supreme Court. Having understood the case, the highest authority decided to cancel the decisions regarding the confiscation of the car. The court explained this by saying that the movement of cigarettes across the border was carried out without the use of a car, which means it cannot be considered an instrument of crime. Otherwise, the sentence against the smuggler remained unchanged.