It is being reported that on Friday three Russian nationals, aged 25, 25 and 18, were arrested in Finland on suspicion of the export of dual-use goods to Russia in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The goods are reported to be electronic components such as sensors and lasers.
Further to our earlier post about the laying of charges against three individuals accused of exporting drones and drone parts to Russia in breach of the EU’s sanctions, the criminal trial of these individuals started on Friday.
The three are, between them, accused of 54 counts of breaching sanctions.
The conduct is alleged to have included exports to front companies in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Hong Kong, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and of deceiving component suppliers based in the US by saying that Germany was to be the final destination of the products.
The German Federal Prosecutor’s office issued a press release earlier today in relation to the charging of three individuals for alleged export control violations.
The three charged are German nationals named as Herwig F., Ina F. and Thomas R.
It is alleged that the three were working for or on behalf of a Chinese intelligence agency and that they worked to procure information in relation to technology with military application, including ship engines.
The defendants are also charged with the unlicensed export of a laser to china in breach of the EU’s Dual-Use Regulation.
The US Department of Justice has issued a press release confirming that the Latvian authorities have arrested a 55-year old, Oleg Chistyakov.
He has been charged with multiple counts of breaching US sanctions and other offences as part of an alleged wider conspiracy with two other also-charged individuals to supply avionics materials to Russia in breach of US sanctions.
The man was arrested near Riga on 19 March pending proceedings for extradition to the United States.
It is being reported today that a further journalist, Svetlana Burtseva, associated with the Russian media group Rossiya Segodnya has been arrested on suspicion of breaching EU sanctions.
The journalist was arrested in early March and is currently in detention.
This is a further Estonian example, see our earlier post, of a charge being brought on the basis that under EU sanctions services amount to an “economic resource” and to provide services to a designated person is to breach the asset freeze.
It has been reported today that the Company Registrar in Cyprus, alongside the Cyprus Bar Association, are investigating an instance of possible Russian sanctions breaches.
The investigation relates to allegations that two days after additions to the OFAC SDN list a Cypriot company newly-filed documents purporting to show corporate rearrangements dating back several years which is accurate and reliable would remove the company from the impact of the US listing.
It is unclear whether the investigation relates to any breaches of the EU’s sanctions.
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 Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Germany has charged two individuals (named as Waldemar W. and Natalie S.) with the export of electronic drone components to Russian in breach of EU sanctions.
The components were first imported into Germany and then exported via Kyrgyzstan and Hong-Kong. The charges relates to 54 separate shipments up to March 2023. The shipments date from both before and since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The total value of the components is stated as €875,000.
Waldemar W was the managing director of two involved companies incorporated in Saarland wand Natalie S managed a company in Baden-Württemberg. It is alleged that suppliers were provided with false end-user information which purported to confirm that the goods were to remain in Germany.
Waldemar W. has been in custody since 9 March 2023. Natalie S. was in custody previously but was subsequently released.
The Dutch FIOD has today announced three arrests as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into suspected exports in circumvention of the EU’s trade sanctions against Russia.
The individuals are two men from Diemen and a woman from The Hague. The men were both directors of a company founded in 2017, and the arrested woman was an employee.
UPDATE: it is now being reported that the Dutch company involved is ETW-Tekhnologiya and that the company’s founder, Mikhail Volovik, is being sought but has not yet been arrested
The goods are described as technological and laboratory goods capable of military use – i.e. dual-use goods.
Searches and witness interviews have taken place in the Netherlands, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Canada.
It has been reported that the Finnish authorities have charged five individuals with sanctions offences.
The allegations relate to the export of drones to Russian in breach of EU sanctions.
The first defendant is Gabriel Temini who is the CEO of the Finnish companies Luminor and Siberica.
Three employees of Siberica have also been charged as well as an employee of a freight forwarding company.
The charges are denied.
Trial is scheduled to commence on 26 January 2024.
