Phones brought from abroad can't be cleared at Tashkent airport for now: customs takes a pause

This was announced by Customs Committee spokesman Husan Tangriyev. Clearance has been suspended until questions about identifying the devices' identifiers and confirming that they were imported legally are resolved.

The statement followed social media reports that passengers' phones were being held for inspection for up to 30 days, and that an extra fee was allegedly being charged for same-day clearance without inspection. Customs did not confirm the introduction of any such fees in its statement.

According to Tangriyev, there have recently been more attempts to exploit the duty-free import allowance through complex schemes: forging codes, using the identifiers of other devices and transferring data from one phone to another to legalise it.

Since the start of the year, officers at the Tashkent-Aero customs complex have stopped 185 cases of illegal import of 1,185 mobile devices worth 8.8 billion soums.

The committee noted that checking the codes requires special expertise: officers need to establish whether both identifiers belong to the same device and whether they have previously been active on a network. The inspection and clearance procedure is now being clarified together with other agencies.

Passengers were urged not to trust unconfirmed reports on social media. Corruption in phone clearance can be reported to the Customs Committee's 24-hour hotline 1108.

Last week, a new phone smuggling trick was uncovered at Tashkent airport. And in summer last year, customs dismissed rumours of higher phone registration fees.