It has been reported that Dmitry Mazepins, a designated person under the EU’s Russian sanctions has been fined €500,000 for unlawfully removing a frozen asset from Italy.
The asset in question was the yacht Aldabra which is said to have been sailed to Tunisia out of the reach of the EU’s sanctions.
The UK’s HMRC has today announced penalties imposed on twelve exporters. The exporters are not named and the details of the offending are limited but the exports all related to either dual-use or military goods.
The penalties imposed were:
The Latvian authorities have announced the conviction of a man on charges of importing goods from Belarus in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The goods in question were railway sleepers and 8kg of nails.
The fine imposed was €5,000. No custodial sentence was imposed, but the man was banned from conducting any import business from Belarus for a year.
It was reported today that the Swiss authorities are currently investigating 30 possible breaches of frozen asset reporting under the Swiss sanctions against Russia.
It was also stated that one of these cases had already been referred to federal prosecutors.
The UK’s National Crime Agency has announced the arrest of three individuals on suspicion of various offences including sanctions breaches.
The individuals were not named.
The National Crime Agency has today claimed to have undertaken 100 “disruptions” since the uptick in Russian sanctions following the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The NCA stated:
“To date, the NCA has secured nearly 100 disruptions – actions that demonstrably remove or reduce a criminal threat – against Putin-linked elites and their enablers.
These include a number of Account Freezing Orders (AFOs) over accounts held by individuals who are closely linked to sanctioned Russians. The Cell has also investigated and taken discreet action against a significant number of elites who impact directly on the UK, as well as targeting less conventional routes used to disguise movements of significant wealth, such as high value asset sales via auction houses.
Internationally, the NCA’s work has assisted in the freezing of numerous properties, eight yachts and four aircraft, and it continues to work in concert with the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to ensure that other assets in the UK are frozen, as well as with global partners to target illicit wealth held abroad”.
A referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union has revealed a conviction in Germany arising from the importation of timber from Myanmar in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The defendant was convicted and given a suspended sentence of 19 months in prison and a confiscation order of €3,310,902.98 was imposed as well.
The case has been referred to the CJEU because the defendant argues that the timber in question should properly be seen as having been imported from Taiwan, and not Myanmar, because the timber had been processed in Taiwan.
Update: The CJEU case was registered on 8 February 2023.
Further to our earlier post, a former university professor in Norway has been convicted of breaching Norway’s Iran sanctions.
The man has been sentenced to 8 months in jail.
The conviction relates to sharing technology without a licence with Iranians.
The President of Romania’s ANAF (National Agency for Fiscal Administration) has confirmed that ongoing results of the organisation’s sanctions enforcement actions.
Without providing details he stated that fines of 280,000 lei (c. €56,000) had been imposed and amounts of 13.171 million lei (c. €2,650,000) had been confiscated.
No further details on these enforcement actions were published.
Further to our earlier post, the Jersey authorities have admitted that the raids conducted in relation to an investigation involving Roman Abramovich had been conducted unlawfully.
Compensation has also been agreed.
