Juris Kaza
Riga, 22 Feb. Latvian authorities are investigating the sharp increase in exports to Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan last year, raising suspicions that these countries are being used to evade sanctions against Russia.
According to the official statistical portal of Latvia, “exports to Kazakhstan increased by EUR 70.4 million or 2.5 times, to Kyrgyzstan by EUR 17 million or 3.5 times and to Armenia of 15 million euros or 2.8 times” in 2022 compared to 2021.
The data could indicate that goods that cannot be supplied directly to Russia due to sanctions, such as smartphones and electronic devices, are being sent to intermediaries in those countries, which still have relatively open trade with Russia. .
Latvian public television LSM said that precisely the products subject to sanctions are those whose exports have experienced the strongest growth last year.
This was also confirmed by the customs services, which indicated that in 2022, proceedings had been opened for possible crimes of circumvention of sanctions in relation to exports to these three Asian countries.
Andzejs Vilumsons, Undersecretary of State at the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told EFE that there are clear indications that they are trying to evade sanctions against Russia in various ways, such as misleading documents and shipments manifestly unsuitable for the intended recipient.
He added that over the past year, customs has ordered the return of some 3,000 shipments deemed suspicious.
For example, customs officers found truckers “with two sets of documents, one for final delivery to a consignee, say, in Kazakhstan, and a second for the actual consignee in Russia,” Vilumsons said.
Among the “unusual” exports, on the other hand, were re-exports of goods from other parts of Europe and sent to a Latvian distributor as if they were destined for the local market.
Vilumsons explained that if customs officers detect a suspicious shipment for the second time at another border post, they have the power to confiscate it.
Furthermore, he noted that Kazakh officials are cooperating with Latvia to clarify the use of their country in the alleged sanctions evasion.
“The sanctions are binding for all citizens of the European Union. EU and UN sanctions are directly applicable in Latvia and have the force of law,” Latvia’s economy ministry said in an email to EFE. .
He added that evasion is punishable under the Latvian criminal code but did not express concern over unusual changes in export statistics.
“Without excluding the possibility of individual attempts to evade sanctions, in general, based on the dynamics of the data, we cannot confirm the presumption that the decline in foreign trade with Russia has been compensated by trade with other countries in the region,” the ministry said. .
“On the contrary, the reduction in the value of transactions with Russia at comparable prices is much faster than the increase in trade with other countries in the region,” he concluded.
However, customs officials quoted by LSM said they detected shipments of goods that cannot be delivered directly to Russia and destined for newly established companies in Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
At least one shipment of components was officially destined for a factory in Kyrgyzstan that doesn’t actually exist.
Although Latvia and the other Baltic countries, bordering Russia and Belarus, are the most likely route for the movement of goods evading sanctions, authorities say they alone cannot prevent or punish these stratagems.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins and his Lithuanian counterpart Ingryda Simonyte jointly called after a meeting in Tallinn this month for the criminalization of sanctions violations across the EU. ECE
jkz/cph/time