August 25, 2006
Mobile phones seized by Russia returned to Motorola
Russian authorities returned 117,519 phones worth $15 million in a case that became a symbol of Russia's capricious and, many believe, corrupt bureaucracy. IHT reports.
"The Interior Ministry seized more than 167,000 phones from Motorola in March, although they had been approved for sale in Russia, and then provided a series of shifting reasons, saying first that the phones were counterfeit, then contraband, then a health hazard and finally evidence in a criminal corruption case that has, evidently, since been dropped.
... The authorities released the phones with no clearer explanation, leaving the resolution of the case as opaque as its beginning. A spokesman for the office of the prosecutor general declined to comment, and the Interior Ministry could not be reached for comment."
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