On 24 April the Cologne District Court convicted a unnamed 52-year old individual of breaching the EU’s Russian sanctions by exporting 38 luxury cars and two motorcycles to Russia.
The cars were said to have totaled €4.7m in value, and were largely shipped to Russia via Belarus (where the goods are not prohibited exports). The prosecution was able to show through invoice addresses, the origins of payments and the ultimate Russian registrations of the vehicles that the individual was knowingly exporting to Russia.
The man was given a suspended two-year prison sentence, ordered to pay €20,000 and ordered to do 200 hours of community work.
It is unclear if the proceeds of the sales will be the subject of confiscation proceedings.
In terms of the sentence the court accepted as mitigating factors: i) that a previously legitimate business was made unlawful almost overnight; and ii) that the goods in question were not military or dual use. Given that these factors would be present in very many cases it is unclear why they were considered as mitigating.