Customs officials in Russia's Krasnodar region burned a U.S. shipment of sports nutritional supplements, mistakenly believing they were included on Russia's list of banned Western goods, a news report said.
“[The shipment] contained vitamin and mineral supplements, as well as sugar syrups, which are sports supplements and are on the list of … goods that are forbidden for import into Russia,” the regional customs service was cited as saying by the TASS news agency Tuesday.
Customs officials burned 407 kilograms of the 532-kilogram shipment, which had traveled to Russia from the U.S. via Turkey and was intercepted in June, the report said.
Sports nutritional supplements were initially included on a list of imported food items banned by Russia in retaliation over Western sanctions in August 2014 but were removed from the list that same month.
The customs officers are standing by their actions, and have even opened an investigation into the shipment's addressee, who they say could be slapped with a 300,000 ruble ($4,400) fine for attempting to receive banned goods, the report said.