[inspic=22,left,,200] Vladimir Kozlovski of the BBCRussian has reported(RUS) about the case of a woman from Uzbekistan, who was released after a long term detainment in New York. She was arrested allegedly for trying to “smuggle” a large sum of money without declaring them at customs service. When the sum taken out of the US exceedes 10.000 dollars, a declaration No:105 has to be filled in. Below is the excerpt from that article.

A-40-years-old mother of three Gulandom Rakhmonova from Samarkand was stopped in the Kennedy Airport on 12 April this year, while boarding on the Uzbek Airways plane. Because she did not speak English a stewardess and then an employee of SwissPort were used as translators by the airport customs official. This fact helped later in the case to challenge the quality of the translation. She was taken to a special building No.77, where a preliminary interrogation of suspects is conducted. In the documents she indicated only 30.000 US dollars as her possession, but after her baggage was checked, 60 envelopes and packages with money totaling 108,435 US dollars was found. All of them had names and addresses on them. The biggest sum in envelopes was 15,000, and the smallest 20 US dollars.

Rakhmonova first said the money was for her ill mother, but then quickly testified that her acquaintances asked her to take the money to Uzbekistan. The federal prosecutor office accused her, first, of not showing the amount of money she had and lying to the representatives of the federal government. Later, when the case-line was found weak, the charge was changed to the illegal trade in the form of unlicensed money transfer. A notebook found in the possession of Gulandom Rakhmonova was used as an argument by the prosecutor. It had notices like “1,000 USD” and next to them circled “20 USD”, a fee for her services as the prosecutor has speculated.

The Federal Prosecutor Elizabeth Geddes brought in witnesses to the case to prove that Mrs. Rakhmonova was charging money for the transfer. But the first of the witnesses brought by the prosecutor named Akbar surprised and disappointed the prosecutor telling that Mrs. Rakhmonova took money from him only to pay for the overload of his musical instrument, which he was sending home. Next witness named Maysara said, she was sending children clothes and 500 US dollars in cash, and Gulandom refused to take money for her services. She “left” 20 dollars on the staircases in front of her flat anyway, but Mrs. Rakhmonova later returned this money to her daughter.

The judge Allyn Ross made the verdict to release Mrs. Gulandom Rakhmonova from the detainment and return her money. It has to be noted that Mrs. Rakhmonova has been detained for four and a half months until she was released and pleaded not guilty.

Hopefully, Mrs. Rakhimova will not have any problems leaving the US this time. And will not have troubles, when she faces the corrupt Uzbek airport customs and border officers.

Indeed, the golden road to Samarkand might also be stony and full of troubles.