Transport to Russia
Hundreds of Finnish investigations into sanctions breaches
November 26, 2023, 3:48 p.m
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Finnish customs checks thousands of trucks transporting goods across the border into Russia and finds suspected sanctions violations in around a third. Research reveals how these come about – and why classifying them as a breach of sanctions is not always easy.
Finnish companies are circumventing sanctions against Russia on a large scale, and companies from other countries are also using Helsinki as a transshipment point for exporting sanctioned goods to Russia. This is shown by research by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” together with the Finnish broadcaster YLE. Accordingly, the company HD-Parts, based in Vantaa, Finland, exported thousands of spare parts for trucks worth hundreds of thousands of euros to Russia, which were sanctioned by the EU. These are mainly spare parts for Scania and Volvo trucks. Russia relies on the supply from abroad of spare parts for trucks of Western brands. Representatives of HD-Parts reject the allegations.
The company does most of its business through exports to Russia. From 2021 to 2022, it increased its sales from 5.6 million euros to 8.8 million euros and doubled its profits. According to the research, another Finnish company illegally exported trucks to Russia. According to data from Russian customs available to the “FAZ”, in many thousands of other cases sanctioned goods from other companies went to Russia via Helsinki. These include goods from the Estonian company Elmec Trade, which is sanctioned by the USA. How the goods got to Russia is unclear. They may have gone via third countries.
600 investigations into sanctions crimes
Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said, according to advance reports from media companies, that the Finnish government was aware of the sanctions violations and sanctions evasion. Customs and police investigated sanctions offenses. “Customs have opened more than 600 investigations into sanctions crimes.” These are administrative offenses for which a prison sentence of up to four years can currently be imposed. A criminal sanctions directive is currently being prepared at the EU level, which provides for an increase in punishment to up to five years. “Preventing sanctions evasion starts at home, in the member states of the European Union,” said Valtonen.
Sanctions expert and head of the Norwegian consulting firm Corisk, Erlend Bjørtvedt, described Helsinki as one of the largest transshipment points for sanctioned goods in Northern Europe. According to him, the Finnish company HD-Parts is one of the Western exporters with the highest number of illegal deliveries to Russia. Along with Elmec from Estonia, the company is one of the strongest sanction breakers in the West, said Bjørtvedt.
Through traffic to other countries remains legal
Sami Rakshit, director of the Finnish Customs Enforcement Department, told FAZ that exporting trucks and their parts to Russia is illegal. But customs cannot open and check all deliveries. According to Rakshit, around 100 trucks crossed the Finnish-Russian border every day (until most border crossings to Russia were closed a few days ago). Since March 2022, customs have identified around 1,000 suspected breaches of sanctions in around 3,000 physical checks. One problem is that transit traffic through Russia to Kazakhstan, for example, is still permitted for many products. According to Rakshit, enforcing sanctions is difficult. “If there is a need for supplies, there is always a supplier. It’s like with drugs,” said Rakshit.
Mikael Wigell, sanctions expert at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs (FIIA), suspected in an interview with the “FAZ” that most companies in Europe that are involved in sanctions violations were founded by Russians or are controlled by Russia. There are several examples of this. “Russia has an illegal network of sanctions-busting companies in Europe. The country built the network after the annexation of Crimea and strengthened it after the start of the war in 2022,” said Wigell.