I remember reading that there was a period during which Andorra’s chief economic activity was car smuggling. It’s not quite the same magnitude, but we sure do hear a lot about metal scavenging in the former Soviet Union. The latest has taken place at Baikonur.
A spokesman for the Russian space agency Roskosmos, Vyacheslav Davidenko, has said that in late February interior ministry operatives found two CIS citizens on the territory of the space center. One of them was an Uzbek national. They were searching for pieces of non-ferrous alloys. They were detained and did not have anything to do with the direct activities of the center, the spokesman stressed.
Now if they’d been truly ambitious, they would have tried to make off with a rocket or something.
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Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.