A Russian tsarist-era coin has been found in a luggage of passenger of the Khujand-Moscow flight at the Khujand airport. The incident took place on September 4 but the Customs Service informed about that incident only on September 14.
An inspection of passengers of the Khujand-Moscow flight reportedly found a Russian one-ruble coin issued in 1796 in a luggage of passenger D.N.
“D.N. tried to take the coin out of the country illegally,” the Customs Service report says.
Criminal proceedings have reportedly been instituted against D.N. under the provisions of two articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 32 – attempted crime, and Article 289 – smuggling; an investigation is under way.
Recall, a court in Dushanbe has fined a Russian woman after finding her guilty of an attempt to smuggle a tsarist-era copper coin out of Tajikistan.
The court in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district on August 21 fined Tatyana Khuzhina 5,000 somoni and ruled that she will be allowed to leave for Russian after the fine is paid.
The lead prosecutor in the case asked the court on August 18 to sentence Khuzhina to six years in prison.
Khuzhina, 41, was detained in late June after customs officers found a Russian two-kopeck coin issued in 1823 in her wallet while she was boarding a flight from Dushanbe to Moscow.
Tajik officials have insisted that Khuzhina illegally tried to take the coin out of the country without declaring it. The court ruled on August 21 that the coin will be kept in a Tajik museum.
Khuzhina, who was born in Tajikistan and has lived in Russia since 2012, says she had the coin for years as a memento of her mother and was carrying it in her wallet when she entered the former Soviet republic from Russia.
Officials from the Russian Embassy in Dushanbe told reporters that the coin is of little value, estimating it to be worth a maximum of U.S$4.00.
