Tucked away in a Guardian article otherwise about allegations of breaches of the UK’s sanctions, it is being reported that the Cypriot Ministry of Finance has confirmed that it is investigating whether Cypriot subsidiaries of the Essar Group entered into transactions with Russia’s VTB Bank that breached, or circumvented, the EU’s sanctions.
The allegations relate to the movement of debt obligations owed by the Essar Group to VTB Bank from Cyprus to Mauritius in 2022.
Poland’s National Tax Administration has fined a company based in Małopolska and run by Belarusian citizens PLN 20,000,000 – or approximately €4,726,000. The fine is administrative, and was the maximum allowable fine.
The company had exported over 100 luxury cars to Russia via Lithuania and Belarus in breach of EU sanctions.
The total value of the cars is said to have been PLN 49m. The press release states that “The evidence gathered indicates that the company’s managers acted knowingly and deliberately participated in the circumvention of sanctions”.
The press release does not mention if proceedings are also being brought against the individuals involved or if the company will be subject to a confiscation of its profits.
The Belgian authorities have intercepted a shipment at Liège airport of 33 crates of military goods to be exported to Israel without an appropriate export licence.
The goods were transiting through Belgium having been shipped from the UK.
The goods are stated to have included: “lasers, sights, fire control systems and parts for fighter jets”.
The UK’s National Crime Agency has published a press release confirming that it has charged John Michael Ormerod with two counts of breaches the UK’s Russian sanctions as well as a money laundering offence.
Ormerod was designated by the UK on 20 May 2025, and the charges relate to his efforts to transfer £200,000 on the same day in breach of the asset freeze imposed upon him.
Ormerod’s UK listing had been lifted on 2 March 2026.
After an internal review of its compliance program, Deutsche Bank is reported to have self-reported possible breaches of the imposed deposit limit of €100,000 set by the EU’s Russian sanctions to the Bundesbank.
The story was first reported in Finanz-Szene (behind a pay wall).
Further to our earlier post, the owner of the “shadow fleet” vessel the MV Deyna, agreed in a Marseilles Court on Wednesday to pay an undisclosed fine for the release of the vessel.
The owner admitted that it had no evidence to support the vessel’s alleged Mozambique flag status.
Upon payment the vessel was released and is now reported to have left French waters.
Further to our earlier posts, a court in Paris had today handed down judgment in the long-running Lafarge prosecution.
The company has been convicted of breaches of the EU’s Syrian sanctions as well as terrorist financing and has been fined €1.125m as well as a separate fine of €4.57m for breach of sanctions.
Of the executives also being prosecuted:
– Bruno Pescheux (former director of the Syrian cement factory) received a 5-year jail term and was fined €225,000;
– Bruno Lafont (former Lafarge CEO) was sentenced to 6 years in jail and fined €225,000;
– Christian Herrault (former deputy Managing Director) was sentenced to five years in jail and fined €225,000;
– Frederic Jolibois (successor to Pescheux) was sentenced to three years in jail, two of which were suspended, and fined €80,000;
– Jacob Waerness was sentenced to 18 months in jail and fined €20,000 and a ban from entering France;
– Ahmad Al Jaloudi was sentenced to 2 years in jail and fined €20,000 and a ban from entering France;
– Amro Taleb, a Syrian intermediary, was sentenced to 3 years in jail and fined and fined €60,000 and a ban from entering France;
– Firas Tlass, tried in absentia, was convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail with a €225,000 fine and a ban from entering France.
It appears that a decision on the confiscation of the proceeds of crime in this case is awaited. The prosecution was seeking confiscation of €30m.
Some of the individual defendants have already indicated their intention to appeal.
On Friday 3 April, the Swedish Coast Guard boarded and seized control of the sanctioned “shadow fleet” tanker the Flora 1. The vessel is suspected of having caused a 12 km (8 mile) oil spill in the Baltic Sea near the island of Gotland.
The vessel was then anchored off Ystad.
The Coast Guard’s press release states that the vessel’s flag status is uncertain, and states that “this is the first time we have been able to trace a discharge to a vessel subject to sanctions, and which may be suspected of environmental crimes”.
We have updated our vessel seizure tracker.
The vessel has since been released, with the Coast Guard citing a lack of evidence linking the vessel to the oil spill, and that the Coast Guard had been able to confirm the flag status of the vessel.
Further to our earlier post, it is now being reported that the Bulgarian authorities have extradited Russian national Oleg Olshansky to face charges of breaching the US’s Russian sanctions and money laundering.
Mr Olshansky had appealed an earlier decision approving his extradition.
Mr Olshansky and another Russian national extradited from Bulgaria, Mr Sergey Ivin have now been charged by the US authorities.
German Customs has issued a press release announcing raids as part of investigations into the suspected Russian exports by three separate companies. A total of 14 residential and commercial properties were raided in the Rhine-Main area.
The press release states that the investigations first arose out of a routine Customs audit:
“there is a suspicion that two of the companies have commercially exported various machine parts and chemical substances to Russia in violation of an existing ban. To this end, they allegedly used a transport company and other foreign logistics service providers to sell or export sanctioned goods from the Rhine-Main region to the Russian Federation without authorisation by means of so-called circumvention exports via neighbouring states”.
The actions of the third company are not specified.
