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.
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.
With the recent news that Finland has increased the number of its ongoing investigations, Europe (meaning the EU, the UK, Switzerland, etc) has reached the milestone of over 2,000 ongoing and public sanctions enforcement investigations being undertaken by regulators and prosecutors.
No doubt there are other investigations which are ongoing in the countries shown on the graph, and no doubt there are investigations ongoing in countries not shown and which remain confidential.
How many of these will be dropped due to inconclusive evidence or exculpatory evidence, and how many will lead to a conviction or fine or acquittal is impossible to say.
It is, without question, an unprecedented level of enforcement.
Following press reporting into allegations that the Viciūnai Group of companies were exporting sanctioned goods to Russia, it is now being reported that the Lithuanian Customs Department has commenced a pre-trial investigation.
The allegations include that dual use and “battlefield” goods were being exported to a factory in Kaliningrad operated by a related company.
It is reported that the company has confirmed the fact of the exports, but claims that it was not aware that the goods in question (which includes ball bearings, semi-conductors, electrical components and other goods) were subject to 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 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.
Following a report by the Lithuanian state-owned railway company to the Prosecutor General’s Office, an investigation has been commenced into suspected illegal exports of goods to Russia.
The railway announced the suspension of the transport of luxury cars as part of its efforts to reduce the risk of sanctions breaches.
The report to the Prosecutor was focussed on the activities of four companies and the transshipment of cars to Russia via other neighbouring countries.
It was reported today, that the Lithuanian State Consumer Rights Protection Authority has undertaken investigations into 95 Lithuanian companies on suspicion of importing Russian timber products in breach of current Russian and Belarusian sanctions.
The allegation is that the goods were being mislabelled as being of Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan origin.
Of those companies investigated nine have now been reported to prosecutors.
The Lithuanian authorities are investigating allegations of the import of urea from the Belarus company Grodno Azot (designated under Belarus sanctions).
Searches have been conducted at a number of locations and 3000 tonnes of urea has been seized valued at several million euros.
The imports are alleged to have been conducted by two companies and involved the relabelling of the product as if it had been produced by another supplier and not Grodno Azot.
We reported in an earlier post that the Lithuanian authorities had commenced an investigation into three companies suspected of breaching the EU’s Crimean sanctions.
The Prosecutor’s Office has today announced the conclusion of the investigation with no charges being brought.
