On the initiative of the Kaliningrad Regional Duma on February 10, 2014, a bill was submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation for the introduction of Article 171.3 “Illegal mining of amber” into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
According to this article, criminal liability will be provided for the illegal extraction of amber from deposits, places of its industrial development or places of its manifestation, as well as the sale of illegally mined amber in natural and (or) processed form, if these acts are associated with the extraction of income on a large scale.
In this case, a large amount is recognized as income received from the illegal extraction of amber and (or) the sale of illegally mined amber in excess of fifty thousand rubles, an especially large amount – one hundred and fifty thousand rubles.
For committing a crime on an especially large scale, it is proposed to establish a punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to seven years with a fine of up to one million rubles.