It is being reported that Polish authorities have arrested and charged a German national with exporting dual-use technology to Russia in breach of EU sanctions.
The arrest was in the Lubusz province and relates to the export of machinery which can be used in weapons manufacture. It is also said that the exports were directed at “Russian military plants involved in weapons production”.
The individual is reported to have admitted his guilt.
An article in Latvia’s LTV has provided an update on a number of features of Latvian sanctions enforcement.
Firstly, the Customs Administration stated that they had confirmed 2,623 breaches of sanctions so far this year up from 2,175 in 2023.
It was also stated that to date “€662,498.27 worth of goods have been confiscated in favor of the State in criminal proceedings for breach of sanctions”.
This is a substantially higher figure that those for confiscations identified in our recent post summarising Latvian convictions obtained in 2022 and 2023.
The article also stated that a total of 14 prosecutions had been brought in relation to the making available of economic resources to companies (i.e. the websites Sputnik and Baltnews) owned or controlled by Dmitry Kiselyov.
Two of those prosecutions ended in convictions in 2023 (as per our earlier post above), but the article adds that “This year [i.e. 2024], three more cases have ended in fines and community service”.
Lastly, the article adds that there have been two other convictions obtained during 2024, but that none of the 2024 judgments have yet entered into force.
Although not mentioned in the article, it has been confirmed to me by Paulis Iljenkovs of Latvia’s FIU (who has also consented to me sharing the information), that Latvia currently has 382 ongoing sanctions investigations.
Further to our earlier post about an HMRC criminal investigation into the alleged export of luxury perfume to Russia, it is now being reported by the BBC that the investigation has been dropped.
The report does not explain the rationale for discontinuing the investigation, but notes the the primary individual involved, a Mr Crisp, had been recorded on video by a private investigator who asked “How’s your Russian market”, to which the recorded response was “We’re doing really well… we ignore government edicts”.
Another director of the company compiled evidence of the alleged sanction breaches, and provided that to the authorities.
That example of self-reporting and co-operation may well explain why the company was not itself prosecuted. It is unclear why the director Mr Crisp has not been pursued. The investigation first came to light after a civil court ruled there was “strong prima facie evidential basis for the allegations” and ordered the removal of Mr Crisp from his position as director of the company.
With gratitude to a Paulis Iljenkovs of the Latvian FIU who pointed me to the website of Latvian anonymised case law, we can publish details of the criminal convictions to date under the EU’s Russian and Belarusian sanctions regimes.
As per an earlier post (here) it had been reported that there had been seven convictions to over 2022 and 2023. When including cases where companies and individuals were both convicted the correct figure is 10 convictions in 7 cases.
The website including Latvia case law is here. The case numbers provided below can be entered into the “Atlasīt pēc arhīva numura:” window to retrieve the judgments themselves which are in Latvian.
A. Case K77-3109-23. Riga City Court. 30 October 2023.
This case concerned the export of a Bentley Mulsanne Speed luxury vehicle to Russia that was sold for €112,552.69 in breach of the EU’s prohibitions on the export of luxury goods.
The company was convicted and fined €111,600 and had the full proceeds from the sale of the car confiscated as well.
The senior individual within the company was also convicted and personally fined €62,000.
In an earlier post we had reported that the total fine from this case was €170,000, but this sum excluded the confiscation.
B. Case K77-2464-23. Riga City Court. 25 October 2023.
The case was the prosecution of an individual who worked for Rossiya Segodnya, a Russian state media channel (the company is not named in the judgment, but is known from earlier press releases as per our earlier post).
The journalist was prosecuted for making “economic resources” available to a designated person, with Rossiya Segodnya having a designated person – Dmitry Kiselev – as its Director General.
The court held that the work product prepared during the course of employment constituted “economic resources” and that making these available to a designated person was a breach of the asset freeze imposed on Kiselev under the EU’s sanctions.
The fine was €6,820.
C. Case K77-2465-23. Riga City Court. 26 June 2023.
This case is twinned with Case B (K77-2464-23) above. The prosecution was of another journalist working for the same organisation, and the same case theory of the work product constituting “economic resources” was pursued.
In this instance, however, the journalist pleaded guilty and expressed remorse.
As part of a plea deal the individual was sentenced to 140 hours of community service.
The judgment itself concerned whether this plea deal was procedurally proper as a matter of Latvia law, and it was upheld.
D. Case K77-3055-23. Riga City Court. 17 October 2023.
This case was the prosecution of a company and individual for importing gas cylinders and valves from Belarus in breach of import prohibitions under the EU’s sanctions. The contract value was €73,508.
A senior person within the company, and the company itself were prosecuted and convicted.
The individual was fined €12,400.
The company was fined double that sum – €24,800, and had profits of €9,500 confiscated. This figure is not explained but may have been the profit made from on-selling the imported goods. The company was also banned from conducting any further business with Belarus for a year.
E. Case K12-0283-23. Daugavpils Court. 14 April 2023.
We have posted on this conviction previously.
The case concerned the conviction of an individual for importing 8kg of nails and 13 consignments of railway sleepers from Belarus in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The man was fined €6,200 and barred from importing any goods from Belarus for a year.
A co-accused was also convicted (the judgment for which could not be found on the case law website) and was fined €5,000 and given a similar ban from importing any goods from Belarus for a year.
F. Case K77-1597-23. Riga City Court. 20 February 2023.
This case concerned the transfer of a professional football player from a Latvian club to a Belarussian club that was 79% owned by a designated person.
The transfer fee was US$50,000.
The player was treated in the judgment as an “economic resource” made available to a designated person in breach of the EU’s asset freeze.
The senior individual at the Latvian club pleaded guilty and was fined €6,200.
The club was also convicted and had the full US$50,000 transfer fee confiscated.
The news website g4media in Romania has made a Freedom of Information request to Romania’s ANAF enforcement agency.
It has published an article summarising the results, and also provided the original response.
The response identifies the following enforcement statistics:
As per our earlier post, as of November 2022, Romania was reported to have imposed fines of 280,000 lei and confiscated 13,171,000 lei (c. €2,650,000). The balance of these further fines have been imposed since that date.
It is being reported that the Mannheim Public Prosecutor’s Office has three people in custody on suspicion of exporting luxury cars to Russia in breach of EU sanctions.
A car manufacturer made a suspicious activity report regarding the exporter, which led to the investigation.
The three individuals are a married couple who run two car dealerships and a third person who was an employee.
It is alleged that they exported nearly 100 cars to Russia via third countries with a total value of nearly €15 million.
As part of the raids, the prosecutors also secured the freezing of €1.3 million.
The Stuttgart Customs Investigation Office has commenced criminal proceedings against two women aged 64 and 25 for suspected attempts to export luxury goods to Russia.
The women were stopped at Stuttgart Airport on their way to Russia and had €114,000 worth of luxury goods in their luggage.
Further investigation revealed that the two had sipped 7 consignments of goods to Russia, and one of those was stopped with a further €12,000 worth of luxury goods.
The goods have been seized and the women were required to agree to a bond of €105,000 before being allowed to continue their travel.
Global Investigations Review (behind a paywall) has published the results of a Freedom of Information request to the Crown Prosecution Service which reveals that the CPS has been asked to advise on a total of three cases under Russian sanctions, two of which are not otherwise in the public domain.
One of the newly-revealed relates to financial sanctions, and the other to trade sanctions.
The third is case relates to the ongoing prosecution of three individuals.
The CPS has not yet added this Freedom of Information response to its website.
Although one of the filters on this blog is “custodial sentence”, I thought it might be helpful to collect all the examples in one place.
As such, here is the full list of custodial sentences that have been imposed across Europe for sanctions offences since 2017. Please note this excludes suspended sentences.
2017:
2018:
2019:
2020:
2021:
2022:
2023:
2024:
Overall the figures are dominated by the Netherlands and Germany with approximately 68 of the 80 years of sentences between them. Indeed, as the graph below demonstrates, other than Finland’s 40-day sentence for breaching a travel ban, the Netherlands and Germany are the only European countries to have sent someone to prison for sanctions offences since 2019.
The Rotterdam District Court has issued two judgments relating to the conviction and sentencing of an individual for exporting computer goods and software destined for Russian companies via intermediaries in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
According to the judgment convicting the individual, the man had been selling computer equipment to two Russian companies prior to 2022. After the goods in questions became sanctioned, a fact he was made aware of by his customs agent, the man directed the exports to affiliates of his Russian customers in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. All the communications, however, remained with the Russian companies.
In an attempt to cover his tracks the man forged a contract between his company and the central Asian entities and provided this in response to questions from his bank.
The court convicted him of the charges, including forgery, holding that the EU Regulations did not require proof that the goods were actually delivered to Russia.
The exports in question were of thousands of items which were either dual-use or luxury goods and were predominantly computer equipment and software.
At sentencing the court made a number of comments:
The man was given a custodial sentence equivalent to the length of his time served in pre-trial detention (450 days), a suspended sentence of just over 11 months, suspended for two years, and a community service order of 240 hours.
Goods which had been seized during the investigation were returned to him.
The second judgment related to confiscation of the proceeds of crime from the man.
The court calculated that the gross proceeds of the crimes were €1,924,579, from which the court deducted €1,626,269 in what it described as “deductible costs”, leaving a final figure for confiscation of €298,310 which the court considered to be the company’s “profit”. This was the amount the man was ordered to pay by way of confiscation order.
The judgment does not record the Court (or the prosecution) giving consideration to the recent CJEU judgment which upheld a confiscation of the gross proceeds of crime.
