According to the press release, 3,850 criminal cases were instigated and 1.2 billion rubles' worth of fake goods, equipment and materials seized ($1 is approximately 29 rubles).
"Well-coordinated moves of federal executive bodies, among them a ban on street sales of video recordings and shutdowns of 6 factories producing up to 70 million discs a year, triggered a downward trend in the number of counterfeit goods: the number of fake audio recordings dropped to 15% and percentage of manufactured goods and food commodities decreased to 20% (according to the estimates by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade)."
The press release said that on Friday Sergei Verevkin-Rokhalsky, deputy interior minister and chief of the Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes, met in Moscow with members of the American Chamber of Commerce and discussed the fight against the production and the sale of counterfeit products in Russia.
He said that the problem of protecting the consumer market from counterfeit and falsified products has become very urgent in the past few years and is now among the ministry's priorities, the press release said.
"Closer contacts between copyright holders and the Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crime were suggested during the meeting," the release said. "The Americans noted a positive trend in the fight against counterfeit goods in the Russian Federation."
