German customs officials on the 2nd of February detained five men who allegedly violated the European Union embargo on Russia by exporting industrial products to Russian arms manufacturers, writes Politico.
According to the investigation, the detainees organized about 16,000 deliveries to Russia, and the illegal payments amount to at least 30 million euros.
The arrests came at a time when Kiev is urging European leaders to end the export of industrial goods and components to Russia, which uses them to produce weapons for the war in Ukraine. Among the detainees are two men with dual Russian-German citizenship and one man with dual Ukrainian-German citizenship.
The investigation is focused on a trading company in Lübeck owned by one of the defendants.
The prosecutor in the case stated that since the beginning of the Russian aggression in 2022, the owner of the company and the other detainees have been conspiring to find ways to send goods to Russia on numerous occasions. To hide their actions, the detainees used at least one other shell company in Lübeck, fictitious buyers in the European Union and outside it.
The list of end consumers of the exported products includes at least 24 Russian defense industry companies, and it is believed that Russian government agencies supported the purchases. The exported products also included mechanical and technical components necessary for the production of Russian weapons, such as bearings and semiconductors.
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