MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) - The arrest of the top law-enforcement official in an east Siberian region could be linked to a smuggling investigation against a Russian jewelry firm, a business paper reported on Monday.
State-run Vesti 24 TV channel reported on Sunday that Buryatia's interior minister, Viktor Syusyura, had been detained on Saturday evening in the republic's capital, Ulan-Ude.
Kommersant quoted a source in Russia's law-enforcement agencies as saying that Syusyura was arrested in relation to a criminal probe against top managers of a Russian jewelry firm on smuggling charges.
The source said Syusyura's detention was related to corruption rather than the smuggling investigation. The paper said he had been transferred to Moscow's Lefortovo jail.
Russia's Interior Ministry confirmed Syusyura's detention but declined to give any details.
Russia's Federal Security Service launched on October 5 a criminal case against the jewelry holding Altyn and a Moscow court consequently sanctioned the arrest of five Altyn officials on smuggling charges, including the company's top managers.
The investigation into the company's activities, which has received substantial media coverage in Russia, was launched after an incident on Russia's border with Kazakhstan in January, when a horse-drawn sled was stopped and found to be carrying 50 kg of jewelry. The man driving the sled had tried to bypass border controls.
Investigators said the jewelry sold via Altyn had been made abroad, and then brought to former Soviet states, where they were stamped with Russian brand marks and smuggled into Russia for sale.
Although Syusyura has been detained in relation to the smuggling case, it is not ruled out that the Buryatian interior minister could also be pressed with other charges as his previous activities are also being investigated. Before his appointment as Buryatia's interior minister in 2006, Syusyura worked as head of the Azov-Black Sea transport interior department in south Russia, the law-enforcement source told Kommersant.
