BERLIN (AP) — German authorities detained five men on Monday accused of being part of a network that illegally exported goods to Russian defense companies in the aftermath of Moscow’s sweeping invasion of Ukraine.
Federal prosecutors said the arrests took place in Lübeck and the nearby Lauenburg district in northern Germany. These individuals are all German nationals; two of them are also Russian citizens and one is also a Ukrainian citizen. They are suspected of joining a criminal organization and violating German foreign trade and payments laws.
Prosecutors said in a statement that searches had been carried out at properties elsewhere in the country and that five other suspects had not yet been detained.
Prosecutors said one of the arrested men, a German-Russian identified under German privacy rules only as Nikita S., owned a trading company in Lübeck. They allege that he and other suspects have used the company to purchase goods for Russian industry and export them to Russia since at least the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The men are accused of using at least one fake company in Lübeck, fake clients inside and outside the EU, and a Russian company in which Nikita S. was involved to conceal transactions and circumvent EU sanctions.
Prosecutors said Russian state agencies allegedly supported the network, with end customers including at least 24 Russian defense companies.
Prosecutors say the investigation so far shows the suspects arranged for about 16,000 shipments to Russia, with illegal transactions worth at least 30 million euros ($35.5 million). They did not elaborate on what goods were sent.
