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Yukos Lawyer's Wife Detained at Airport After Drug Tip-Off

Police detained the wife of a Yukos attorney at Sheremetyevo Airport on Tuesday, saying they suspected her of possessing illegal drugs, her lawyer said Wednesday. She and her children missed their flight as a result.

Yelena Guryanova, wife of Pavel Ivlev, was detained and questioned by airport police after checking in for her 6:30 p.m. Aeroflot flight to New York, family lawyer Gevorg Dangyan said. The authorities had received an anonymous tip that she was carrying a large amount of illegal drugs, he said.

Ivlev is deputy managing partner of the law firm ALM Feldmans, which has power of attorney to manage Yukos' bank accounts. He has been living abroad since prosecutors raided the firm's offices in December. At the time, Ivlev told The Moscow Times that he was threatened with arrest if he did not answer questions about Yukos.

Guryanova was unavailable Wednesday, as she and her children caught a later flight to Toronto, Dangyan said.

But Guryanova was quoted in Wednesday's Izvestia as saying that her questioning was related to possible criminal charges against her husband in connection with the Yukos case.

Guryanova and her two children were planning to visit Ivlev in New York. But at the airport, customs officials took away their passports and police escorted them to the terminal precinct for questioning, said Dangyan, who was with the family at the airport.

After she was released, Guryanova and her children were told by airline officials that they were late for boarding, Dangyan said.

A man who answered the phone at the Sheremetyevo police precinct said he had no information about the incident.

In January, the Basmanny District Court gave the Prosecutor General's Office the go-ahead to press charges of money laundering and tax evasion against Ivlev, Kommersant reported.

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