Hamburg’s Customs Investigations Office has announced raids on residential and commercial properties in the Berlin area as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected imports of luxury goods from Russia in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
In particular it is alleged that the business was importing substitute caviar from Russia which would amount, if proven, to a breach of import prohibitions under the Russian sanctions.
Other offences including customs evasion are being investigated.
Finland’s Customs has issued a press release announcing the an investigation into a company in the Helsinki region that is suspected or arranging exports of goods to Russia via third countries including Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
The exports are suspected of ranging from 2022 to 2025, and to have included direct sales by the company.
The goods involved are ball bearings and industrial motors with an estimated value of €300,000.
The investigation appears to have been started with the interception of a consignment of prohibited dual-use goods which was being directly exported from Finland to Russia.
As previously posted Malta’s Sanctions Monitoring Board maintains a page or listing companies that have been subjected to a fine of greater than €800 for sanctions breaches.
The page has now been updated to include the fact of a fine against:
No other information is provided, including which sanctions regime was involved.
Separately, the SMB has issued an update on Malta’s implementation of the EU’s Russian sanctions. This notes the completion of 211 inspections, and notes that some of its investigations “are cases advancing through judicial channels”.
No further information is provided on these, presumed, prosecutions.
HM Revenue and Customs has issued a Notice to Exporters reporting on the imposition of a civil compound penalty against an unnamed company for making “goods available to Russia in breach of” the UK’s Russian sanctions.
The penalty is stated to be £1,160,725.67.
No other information has been published on the identity of the offender, the nature of the offending or the goods that were exported, whether there was a self-report, or the nature of the cooperation that secured a civil penalty.
The Austrian TV station TV21 has broadcast a story (on YouTube in English) reporting on raids and searches by the Hannover Customs Office in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony on behalf of the Bielefeld Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Three individuals were arrested.
As well as trading in untaxed cigarettes, it is suspected that the group were responsible for the prohibited export of 100 cars to Russia via third countries in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The Dutch FIOD has issued a press release regarding the arrest of four individuals and the launch of a criminal investigation into those individuals and an unnamed company operating in the Rotterdam area.
The individuals and company are suspected of being “involved in prohibited supplies or support of ships that are part of the so-called Russian shadow fleet” in breach of the EU’s Russian sanctions.
Raids and searches were carried out at four homes and the company’s premises.
Latvia’s Customs has issued a press release providing details on a recent confiscation proceeding, and providing some data on confiscation proceedings over all.
The press release states that 91 proceedings have been commenced to confiscate criminal property arising from breaches of EU sanctions.
It is noted that to date 57 of these proceedings have resulted in the confiscation of assets totalling €1,935,683.
The particular recent case outlined in the press release relates to the confiscation of a truck and trailer that had been stopped and searched at the Terekhova customs point. Officers suspected that the truck was itself being exported, and an investigation was commenced.
By court decision of 9 June 2025 the truck and its trailer, valued at €52,500, were confiscated.
It has been reported that the Spanish National Anti-Fraud Investigation Office, and competition authorities, have opened an investigation into the importation of diesel to Spain from Turkey and Morocco.
The suspicion being investigated is whether the diesel actually originates from Syria, Russia and/or Iran.
The investigation is reported to have been commenced in late 2024.
As further reported: “Several of the companies that were accused of bringing oil from Morocco due to their price advantage as they are of Russian origin in 2023 have either been disqualified or are currently involved in legal proceedings for fraud“.
It is being reported by Reuters, (and others) that a UK-Russian dual national, Mikhail Vlasov, has today appeared in court in London charged with 8 counts of breaching the UK’s Russian sanctions.
It is alleged that Mr Vlasov sent cryptocurrency (valued at £4,000) to separatist militias in Russian-occupied Ukraine that are designated persons under the UK’s sanctions.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
This is the second criminal prosecution under the UK’s post-2022 Russian sanctions.
France’s ACPR has issued a press release making public a fine of €600,000 imposed on Banque Delubac.
The detailed Décision, make clear that the compliance failings predominantly relate to AML and CTF failings, but Complaint 9 relates to sanctions compliance. The ACPR noted a failure by the bank to collect data on directors and beneficial owners for more than a quarter of its business customers. Further, the bank applied no screening at all on transactions valued at below €1,000 between 2020 and 2022/203.
The size of the fine is said to reflect the €3m spent on improving the bank’s compliance, and the bank’s loss for the financial year 2024.
