Lithuania uncovers scheme to evade sanctions on Russia: 11 detained

Officers of the Customs Criminal Service (CCS) have uncovered a Kaunas-based company in Lithuania that had allegedly posed as bogus recipients in Portugal and attempted to ship industrial water-treatment equipment to Russia.

As reported by Baltic states news website Delfi, the CCS said searches were recently carried out at the company, 11 people were detained, and several tonnes of equipment intended for projects in Russia were seized. After questioning, the detainees were released; two were placed under a travel ban.

Two lorries carrying the equipment were intercepted – one in Kaunas, the other heading towards the Lithuanian-Polish border – and a third consignment was stopped by law-enforcement officers in Bulgaria. According to the service, the equipment was destined for specific industrial sites in Russia.

Searches were also conducted in Portugal and Bulgaria in cooperation with local authorities. In Portugal, they took place at the premises of a fictitious recipient of filtration equipment, and in Bulgaria at a freight terminal – a warehouse storing products from the Kaunas firm. Several tonnes of water-treatment equipment and components were seized during the raids.

Authorities suspect that, in circumvention of international sanctions, all this equipment would have ended up in Russia, with part of it used in the country’s oil industry. Lithuania’s CCS is conducting a pre-trial investigation into violations of international sanctions, led by the Kaunas District Prosecutor’s Office.

In early August, prosecutors in Latvia brought charges against members of the board of the local company SIA Arta-F over supplies of sewing fittings and various raw materials for manufacturing uniforms for the Russian armed forces worth more than €6 million. And in Poland in May, three people were remanded in custody for breaching EU sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus.