Philipine Ozone Desk

A total of 36 tonnes of chemical substance that had been illegally imported from Russia was detained by officers of the city customs control department in Astana. One of the companies in the capital claimed the substance to be chladone in its falsified customs declaration submitted to the department. However, a special test by customs laboratory specialists revealed the substance to be a hazardous refrigerant, which was brought illegally to Kazakhstan. According to specialists, the substance is very dangerous to human health and if it gets into the air, it will damage the ozone layer.

That is why Vienna Convention bans worldwide production and transportation of the substance. The management of the company which delivered the substance to Astana was hoping to make profits from illegally selling the substance for R2,5m [100,000 dollars].

[Almas Abzhapparov, captioned as deputy chief of Astana customs control department] Our department has instituted a criminal case. As to the refrigerant, we shall send it back to Russia.

Source: BBC Monitoring/International Reports, Quoting: Kazakh Television
first channel, Astana, in Russian, 29 May 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1298071.stm