It is being reported that he Lithuanian Customs Authority has today prevented the attempted export of two Tesla Cybertrucks valued at over €400,000 and has commenced a preliminary criminal investigation into the case.
The vehicles were being exported to Belarus, but the Customs Authority suspected that Russia was the intended final destination.
The drivers have been questioned and subsequently released.
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.
Following prominent reporting in Lithuania (e.g. here), the Lithuanian Customs Department has confirmed that it has commenced an investigation into the alleged activities of the company UAB Vilpra.
It is alleged that the company exported nearly €1m in air conditioning units to Belarus via Kyrgyzstan in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The company is reported to deny the allegations and to have stated that it complies with all sanctions.
Malta’s Sanctions Monitoring Board (the “SMB”) has, for the first time , imposed a fine for breach of EU sanctions.
The company in question was ArabMillionaire Limited. The SMB publishes the names of all company’s fined more than €800, but the size of the fine is otherwise unspecified.
Also unspecified is the conduct giving rise to the fine, but it was said to have been identified “at the time of supervisory examination conducted between June and August 2020”.
It is unclear when the fine was issued as this information is not specified on the website and the Sanctions Monitoring Board has confirmed that such information is confidential.
ArabMillionaire operated as an online casino (trading as Playfooz.com) based in Dubai. It’s licence from the Malta Gaming Authority was suspended in October 2022, and then cancelled in October 2023.
It has been reported that alongside other regulatory failings part of the reason for these actions by the Malta Gaming Authority was non-compliance with money laundering and counter terrorist financing.
Further to our earlier post there has been an ongoing investigation in Cyprus in relation to the alleged transfer of over $1 billion in shares by Alexey Mordashov in breach of the asset freeze imposed upon him by the European Union.
It is now being reported that the Cypriot investigation has reached its “final stages”.
The report gives no indication of the outcome of the investigation.
The allegations relate to transfers of the shares in the tourism operator Tui.
The UK’s regulator for the gambling sector, the Gambling Commission has issued a press release recording fines of £343,035 against Hillside (UK) Gaming ENC and £239,085 against Hillside (UK Sports) ENC.
Both companies operate under the Bet365 brand.
The fines in part relate to social responsibility failings, and partly to financial crime compliance failings including “failing to undertake financial sanctions checks on new customers prior to their first deposits”.
On Friday the Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s office announced that it conducted six raids and arrested four individuals in relation to suspected breaches of the EU’s trade sanctions relating to Russian diamonds.
It is being reported that the investigation arose after the seizure of a cargo of diamonds on February, and that a total of three shipments had been seized with a reported value of over €8 million.
This blog has been live now for just over two months.
During that time and by way of recap, a number of states have provided updated enforcement statistics in that period (Finland, Switzerland, Latvia), but the period has also seen a significant volume of new enforcement activity:
Continue reading “European sanctions enforcement: the last two months”
The Criminal Customs Service of Lithuania has undertaken its first enforcement of the EU sanctions which prevents a Russian-registered car from driving in Lithuania.
The car in question, valued at over €40,000 was confiscated and the driver was fined.
It is being reported today that officers from the Berlin-Brandenburg Customs Investigation Office and the Berlin State Police conducted raids on seven private and commercial addresses and arrested three people on suspicion of the unlawful export of luxury cars in breach of the EU’s Russian sanctions.
The sanctions prohibit the export of cars valued at more than €50,000.
The allegations relate to the export of 400 cars valued in total at €28 million. The cars are said to have been indirectly exported to Russia via Belarus since June 2022.
