It is being reported that the Swedish authorities have commenced three preliminary investigations into possible Russian sanctions breaches during 2024.
No other information has been made public, but the investigations appear to relate to trade sanctions.
The Rotterdam District Court has largely upheld a fine of €95,000 imposed on a trust services provider by the Dutch National Bank.
The DNB’s investigation started in 2019, and the fine was originally imposed on 2022.
The fine related to compliance failings including both money laundering and sanctions failures. The firm’s policies and procedures were insufficient and there was a lack of proper identification of the UBO and of ongoing diligence.
On appeal the fine was reduced to €90,250 due to an argument that the investigation process had been unduly lengthy,
Finnish Customs has given an update on trade sanctions enforcement in Finland. The press release confirms that there are more than 800 such investigations being undertaken by Finnish Customs of which around 90 are being investigated as aggravated offences.
Oddly, a press report, published on the same day, reported that Finnish Customs had more than 740 ongoing investigations. The figure of 740 had been reported back in April, as per our earlier post, itself an increase on the figure of 700 investigations reported in February.
The press release from Finnish Customs also gave detail of a particular investigation into a customs warehouse company in eastern Finland suspected of exporting drones, processors, smartphones, computers and echo sounders to Russia.
The goods arrived in Finland as air freight at Helsinki Airport, after which they were attempted to be exported via the company’s intermediate storage in Virolahti by road to Russia.
The value of the sanctioned goods was about €700 000 and are said to have mostly been ordered from online stores in the US with the consignee in Russia as the Russian postal service.
To date seven people have been questioned as part of the investigation.
It is being reported that Norway’s Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste (Norwegian Customs), has 37 ongoing investigations in relation to alleged breaches of Norway’s Russian sanctions. Many of these are said to involve attempts to evade detection by exporting to Russia via third countries, but some are described as relating to imports into Norway.
It is also being reported that there is a further investigation under Norway’s Export Control Act.
Further to our earlier post from February 2024, it is being reported that the Paris Court has ordered that the prosecution of the French cement maker Lafarge and eight individuals on charges of terrorist financing and breach of EU sanctions against ISIS should proceed to trial.
The case is part of a long running saga arising from allegations that the company paid money to ISIS in order to keep a cement plant open and operating.
OLAF – the European anti-fraud agency – has issued a press release setting out the assistance it has given to Spain’s National Police. The assistance appears to have been largely on the intelligence and analysis side.
As stated in the press release:
“As part of the investigation, the Spanish National Police and Customs Surveillance Service arrested four individuals in the Spanish region of Catalonia, three of whom are Russian nationals. The operation also resulted in the seizure of 13,000 kilograms of a chemical compound subject to export restrictions, at the Port of Barcelona.
The investigation revealed that a Spanish company, managed by Russian nationals, had established a sophisticated logistical and economic scheme to export internationally sanctioned chemical products to Russia. This network involved the use of shell companies in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan to disguise the true destination of the goods, which were later rerouted to Russia”.
The Police have also issued a press release, stating that the arrests were in the Catalan towns of Sant Feliu de Guisols (Girona), Cerdanyola del Vallès and Santa Perpètua de Mogoda (Barcelona), and that the operation included searches at residential properties.
This is the first announced enforcement of EU sanctions in Spain since April 2023.
This is also the first announced operation said to have been aided by intelligence-gathering by OLAF.
The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York has issued a press release, providing details of the arrest in Cyprus of Arthur Petrov a Russian-German national in August 2023 for the purposes of extradition to face charges in the US of breaching US sanctions against Russia.
Petrov only arrived in New York in August 2024 suggesting prolonged extradition proceedings in Cyprus.
Petrov operated the Cypriot company Astrafteros Technokosmos LTD, via which he procured US-origin microelectronics for onward sale, ultimately, to the Russian military through the company LLC Electrocom VPK.
Two other co-defendants remain at large.
Further to our earlier post from May when three Russian national university students were arrested in Finland, an update on the case has now been reported.
The investigation of all three individuals continues, with two having been released from custody over the summer and the third recently released.
The conditions of bail include a travel ban, and it is said that the three are being investigated in relation to the “gross regulatory crime” of exporting dual use goods from Finland to Russia in breach of EU sanctions.
It is unclear whether this case is related to Tampere University recently reporting itself to the Finnish police.
It is being reported that a number of government ministers in Luxembourg have filed a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The complaint was filed against Spacety Luxembourg SA, the Luxembourg subsidiary of the Chinese company Spacety. The parent company has been sanctioned by the EU for providing support to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Luxembourg company has now filed for bankruptcy and the progress of the criminal matter is not known.
The Latvian publication The Insider recently reported on allegations that sanctioned Russian oligarchs, and others, were continuing to operate in Latvia through proxies and fronts.
In response the Latvian Prime Minister has ordered the relevant authorities in Latvia to conduct an investigation.
