The head of state signed a law allowing customs officers to stop trucks for inspection outside the customs control zones throughout the Russian Federation without the participation of traffic police officers. The document is published on the official portal of legal information.
The law is aimed at optimizing the activities of mobile groups of customs authorities. It allows customs authorities to independently stop vehicles with a technically permissible maximum mass of 3.5 tons or more outside the customs control zones throughout Russia. Previously, in some cases, customs officers could only do this with the participation of traffic police officers.
When exercising control, the customs authorities also now take into account the mass of vehicles with equipment, passengers and cargo, that is, the technically permissible maximum mass. In addition, the procedure for the actions of authorized customs officials and drivers when stopping cars is specified.
Previously, customs authorities could stop motor vehicles outside the customs control zones in the territories of the Republic of Altai, the republics of the North Caucasus, Altai and Stavropol Territories, Astrakhan, Bryansk, Volgograd, Kurgan, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Pskov, Samara, Saratov, Smolensk, Tver, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk regions and the city of St. Petersburg.
The Government of the Russian Federation expects that the introduction of these changes will have a positive impact on the control of customs officers over socially significant goods, preventing the import and circulation of sanctioned goods, counterfeit products, as well as suppressing schemes for minimizing VAT payments in mutual trade within the EAEU. The solution to the problem of preventing “false exports” is possible only in the case of ensuring control over goods en route through the customs territory of the EAEU, regardless of the measures applied at the places of release and departure of goods, the Cabinet noted.