Russia seizes half tonne of contraband caviar

Russian police seized almost half a tonne of contraband caviar worth an estimated $US600,000 ($NZ818,107) as it was being smuggled through a military airfield in black rubbish bags, the interior ministry said.

Following a tip-off, police intercepted the 460kg of caviar at Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow, where it was flown from Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East, said Yuri Sinyutin, a spokesman for the ministry's economic safety department.

"In order to get this much black caviar, poachers caught and destroyed over 23 tonnes of sturgeon, themselves worth around 10 million roubles ($NZ545,405)," said Sinyutin.

Environmentalists say sturgeon fish, from which caviar is produced, are on the verge of extinction.

Russian television pictures showed the caviar stored in metal and plastic buckets wrapped in rubbish bags. Sinyutin said it was transported without proper documents, stored in unsanitary conditions, and came from illegally-caught fish.

Overfishing, poaching, pollution, poor management and corrupt law enforcement have cut sturgeon stocks so severely that experts say the beluga species is on the verge of extinction after falling 90 per cent in the past 20 years.

Beluga caviar, a symbol of ostentatious wealth and dining luxury, costs about $US1800 for 1kg in Moscow markets, versus 3700 British pounds ($NZ10,207) in London.

Russia's first Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, a leading contender for president in 2008, last Friday spoke favourably for a sturgeon fishing ban. He said he could live without the delicacy if a ban helped replenish stocks.

- Reuters