Russian falcons were not allowed to fly to the UAE

In Russia, an attempt to smuggle falcons into the UAE was stopped. A resident of a Middle Eastern country was sentenced to six years in prison.

"A court in Moscow sentenced a UAE citizen to 6 years in prison for attempting to smuggle from Russia's Red Book falcons-gyrfalcons," RIA Novosti reports with reference to the case file.

In December 2022, FSB investigators opened a criminal case against a foreigner and three Russians who tried to smuggle Red Book birds to the UAE.

The case file says that a UAE citizen and two Russians were preparing to smuggle five gyrfalcons with a total value of more than 11.3 million rubles, and the third Russian turned out to be a hired driver who was not aware of the group's plans and acted as a witness in the case.

"The foreigner did not admit guilt and insisted on the absence of corpus delicti, but the court found the collected evidence convincing," the agency said.

Falconry is extremely popular in the UAE and bird smuggling is an extremely profitable business.