Russian police impounded an entire shipment of Motorola phones as smuggled goods and destroy nearly a third of them. Since the country is cracking down on smuggling and customs fraud, Motorola took extra precautions to get its latest shipment of 167,500 handsets to Russia safely: The phones were flown in on a chartered jet with the Motorola logo on it. Despite the extra measures, the Russian police deemed the 50,000 phones "harmful" and confiscated the rest. According to the report in The Wall Street Journal, the spat highlights the risk Western companies take when chasing profits in emerging economies that typically offer few legal protections.
For more on the destroyed Motorola handset shipment:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)