Milakovsky working with Russian federal security service to combat illegal loggers
Brian Milakovsky, a forest projects coordinator with WWF-Russia based in Vladivostok, described how the FSB steps in to handle corruption in the region.
“They have a division for fighting corruption and they view forest crimes correctly as some of the most linked to corruption,” he told RTCC.
“Our specialists are recognised in the region as very qualified, non-politicised people who know a lot about the way forest crimes are committed, often having more information about that than police or FSB people who have to cover many different kind of crimes.”
The FSB were involved in bringing a logging case to trial in December 2014.
Evidence gathered in the investigation was enough to convict a 36-year-old resident from the village of Dolmi in the Khabarovsk Territory, who was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in a special penal colony for logging timber worth more than 30 million rubles (worth around $450,000 today, although the ruble has plummeted in recent months).
Milakovsky stressed that the group also works regularly with local forest rangers and federal police from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.