Bulgarian customs officials, border patrols, and policemen form part of these efficient rings - as do their Macedonian and, to a lesser extent, Greek counterparts. The Sofia- based Center for the Study of Democracy thinks that a third of the Bulgarian workforce (i.e., c. 1 million people) may be involved. Many of the traders maintain mom-and- pop establishments or stalls in public bazaars, where members of their family sell the goods. Some of the merchandise ends up in Serbia, which was subjected to UN sanctions until lately. Fuel smuggling on bikes and other forms of sanctions busting have largely ended but they have been replaced by cigarettes, alcohol, firearms, stolen cars, and mobile phones. The Serbian authorities often round up and deport Bulgarian shuttle traders, provoking furious resentment in Bulgaria. Headlines like "(Serbian) Policemen take away our countrymen's money" and "Serbs searching (Bulgarian) women's genitals for money" are pretty common. The Bulgarians are embittered. They used to smuggle medicines and fuel into embargoed Serbia - only to be abused by Serb officials now, that the embargo has been lifted. East European buyers used to reach as far as India where they shopped wholesale in winter. Russians used to buy readymade clothes, leather goods, and cheap jewelry in New Delhi and elsewhere and sell the goods in the numerous flea markets back home. To finance their purchases, they used to sell in India Russian cosmetics and consumer goods such as watches, cameras, or hair dryers. But the 1998 financial crisis and sub-standard wares offered by unscrupulous Indian traders put a stop to this particular venue. Governments are trying to stem the shuttle trade. The Russian news agency, ITAR-TASS, reports that Sergei Stepashin, the dynamic chairman of the Russian Audit Chamber (and a former short-lived prime minister of Russia) is bent on tightening the cooperation between member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The audit agencies of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will exchange information and strive to control the thriving shuttle trade across their porous borders. China and Russia are poised to sign a bilateral accord regarding these issues in October. The WPS Monitoring Agency reported last November that the Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Russia intends to treat cargos of more than 50 kilos as a consignment of commercial goods, subject to import tariffs (on top of the current tax of 30 percent). The Ministry claimed that shuttle trade accounts for up to 90 percent of all imported goods "in certain spheres" (e.g., furs). As late as 1994, Russians were allowed to import up to $5000 of duty-free goods in their accompanied baggage - a relic of communist days when only the privileged few were allowed to travel.