Dutch authorities arrested three individuals earlier this month as a part of a multinational investigation into a world smuggling community that allegedly labored to evade EU-wide sanctions on Russia.
The Netherlands’ Fiscal Info and Investigation Service stated Tuesday it had detained three individuals, all aged of their fifties, from Diemen and The Hague. The arrests have been made on January 9, with raids additionally carried out in Estonia, Latvia, Germany and Canada.
Two of the suspects have been directors of a Dutch-registered firm, arrange in 2017, that exported “technological and laboratory tools” with potential “navy functions” to Russia, the Eurojust company, which helped coordinate the investigation, stated in an announcement.
The EU has slapped Russia with wave after wave of sanctions following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, however the measures have been criticized for permitting too many loopholes.
Final October, a Dutch court docket sentenced a Russian businessman to 18 months in jail for exporting digital items to Russia, saying sanctions evasion was his “income mannequin.”
