Suspects in the illegal trafficking of precious stones were detained in Moscow.

In Moscow, the activities of a group of individuals involved in the illegal trafficking of natural precious stones were suppressed. Svetlana Petrenko, the official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, told about this on June 23.

"The Investigative Committee, in cooperation with the Russian Federal Security Service, has suppressed the criminal activities of individuals who systematically stole high—quality rough diamonds from Alrosa in order to smuggle them into the territory of the Republic of Armenia," she said.

According to the investigation, from September 2024 to January 2025, the attackers systematically stole diamonds from the mining company Alrosa to make a profit. A criminal case was opened into the crime in accordance with Part 4 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code ("Theft"), Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code ("Illegal trafficking in amber, jade or other semiprecious stones, precious metals, precious stones or pearls").

As a result, law enforcement agencies managed to detain Valentina Matyushenkova, her son Alexei Matyushenkov, who acted as an intermediary, as well as Armen Petrosyan and Arman Sahakyan. They tried to steal diamonds worth more than 1.7 million rubles.

During the search of the places where the attackers lived, objects, documents, about 200 thousand carats of raw materials intended to be replaced with cheaper ones, cash, and expensive jewelry of well-known brands were seized. In accordance with the request of the investigation, the court took the defendants into custody. At the moment, measures are being taken to detain persons who took part in the commission of a crime.

I would have known the ransom: pawnshops do not want to return the valuables handed over due to fraudsters

Is it worth putting business interests above civil ones

Earlier, on May 23, the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Irina Volk, announced the detention in the Krasnoyarsk Territory of two employees of a gold mining enterprise suspected of stealing a concentrate with a precious metal worth over 434 million rubles.