Two arrested for smuggling equipment to Russia

Spanish investigators have arrested a Ukrainian and a russian on suspicion of smuggling military aeronautical equipment to russia, defying an eU embargo linked to the Ukraine war. they were arrested at separate locations in the northern Basque Country in an operation by police and customs investigators to stop an “imminent” shipment to russia, an interior Ministry statement said.

“the raid was launched to prevent the imminent dispatching from eU territory of equipment for the cockpits of military aircraft,” it said, without saying exactly when it happened. investigators were tipped off in June 2021 about a married couple, both Ukrainians, who were running a Spanish company “evading existing export controls, thereby committing a smuggling offence”. investigators arrested two suspects — a Ukrainian and a russian — one of whom

While checking the firm’s export records, investigators discovered a network to supply military equipment to Moscow’s aeronautical sector with a “profound knowledge of transportation logistics”. it had designed a “sophisticated system of international customs documentation” that allowed it to ship goods “to countries not facing an embargo when in reality the destination was russia”.