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.
It is being reported that the Irish authorities have barred the vessel, the Sarah M, from loading a cargo of livestock after the authorities became aware that the vessel was registered with the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping.
Under article 3ea of Regulation 833/2014, any vessel certified via the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping was, after 8 April 2023, barred from entry to EU ports.
On 24 April the Cologne District Court convicted a unnamed 52-year old individual of breaching the EU’s Russian sanctions by exporting 38 luxury cars and two motorcycles to Russia.
The cars were said to have totaled €4.7m in value, and were largely shipped to Russia via Belarus (where the goods are not prohibited exports). The prosecution was able to show through invoice addresses, the origins of payments and the ultimate Russian registrations of the vehicles that the individual was knowingly exporting to Russia.
The man was given a suspended two-year prison sentence, ordered to pay €20,000 and ordered to do 200 hours of community work.
It is unclear if the proceeds of the sales will be the subject of confiscation proceedings.
In terms of the sentence the court accepted as mitigating factors: i) that a previously legitimate business was made unlawful almost overnight; and ii) that the goods in question were not military or dual use. Given that these factors would be present in very many cases it is unclear why they were considered as mitigating.
It is being reported that on Friday three Russian nationals, aged 25, 25 and 18, were arrested in Finland on suspicion of the export of dual-use goods to Russia in breach of the EU’s sanctions.
The goods are reported to be electronic components such as sensors and lasers.
Further to our earlier post about the laying of charges against three individuals accused of exporting drones and drone parts to Russia in breach of the EU’s sanctions, the criminal trial of these individuals started on Friday.
The three are, between them, accused of 54 counts of breaching sanctions.
The conduct is alleged to have included exports to front companies in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Hong Kong, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and of deceiving component suppliers based in the US by saying that Germany was to be the final destination of the products.
Sanctions circumvention. It is one of the key topics of the moment.
It is a routine question for people to ask which countries provide a circumvention risk. It is also a common perception that enforcement of sanctions circumvention is lacking.
Based on the material in this blog we have listed out below the more than 40 examples where of recent enforcement of sanctions circumvention on a third-country by third-country basis. Where a particular case involved circumvention via several countries they are listed separately.
Continue reading “The enforcement of sanctions circumvention in Europe”
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.
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the body empowered to enforce export controls and trade sanctions in the UK, has today published two Notices to Exporters setting out compound penalties in relation to Russian sanctions and export control violations.
The first Notice, in relation to an unnamed company, relates to a penalty of £1,058,781.79 imposed for breaches of the UK’s Russian sanctions regulation.
No information is given as to the nature of the conduct, the value of the goods, or why a criminal prosecution was not brought. There is no mention of a confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
The second Notice relates to export control violations that are not described as breaches of the UK’s sanction. Again no information is given as to the names of the companies, the nature of the violations, or an indication given as to the confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
To quote the Notice:
“The 6 settlements made by UK companies were:
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.
In an earlier post we reported that the German authorities had seized a vessel in the Port of Rostock which was carrying a cargo of sanctioned birch timber from Russia. The planned destination had been the United States where the timber is not sanctioned but the ship had diverted to Rostock seemingly after technical troubles.
The vessel in question, Atlantic Navigator II, has now been allowed to leave Rostock.
The Customs authorities have not stated whether the timber remained on board.
The Rostock Public Prosecutor’s Office is also reported to have confirmed that the matter remains the subject of an ongoing investigation.
