Smuggled goods are pouring into Russia at such a rate that a major government operation netted 6. 6 billion rubles of illicit property but caught less than half of the illegal trade, officials said Thursday.


The two-month operation, code-named Trawl, involved hundreds of officers from the Security and Interior Ministries, the State Customs Committee, the State Prosecutor's office and local officials.


Smuggling has increased dramatically with breakup of the former Soviet Union, which has left vast borders unpatrolled. The growth of the hard-currency economy has created new incentives for state enterprises and individuals to illegally export goods for dollars.


From July 25 to Sept. 25, the operation brought in 17, 000 tons of strategic metals and 50, 000 cubic meters of sawn timber, officials said at a press conference. Some cases involved the use of civilian aircraft loading and unloading cargo at military bases.


Officials also seized weapons and ammunition and uncovered smuggling of oil, gas and electricity.


Most of the goods, officials said, were headed for the Baltics, followed by Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.


Still, officials estimated the amount they seized did not begin to approach the total.


"Right now, we are unable to stop all of the smuggling from Russia to other countries", said Valery Krasnovksy, who is in charge of issuing export licenses. "What are we doing is less than half of the illegal trade".


Officials acknowledged that they were ill-prepared for the surge of smuggling that began when prices were freed this year.


The officials complained that current laws were inadequate to punish smugglers for illegally sending goods abroad and for bringing unsanctioned cargos, especially rubles, into the country.


As an example, they cited the capture of a plane from the Baltics that arrived in Moscow on Tuesday with 250 million rubles on board.


Customs officials could do no more than send the plane back. They estimated that 1 million rubles enters Russia every day from Lithuania.


The officials acknowledged that they were, in some cases, only at an amateur level when it came to combating smugglers.


"We were trained to work inside the former Soviet Union", said Vladislav Podufalov, an adviser at the Security Ministry, the former KGB. "Now we are facing a big problem of how to find evidence in cases when a person stole something in one republic, sold it in another and was arrested in a third republic".