German authorities on Monday detained five men accused of being part of a network that illegally exported goods to Russian defense companies after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The arrests took place in Lübeck in northern Germany and in nearby Lauenburg district, federal prosecutors said. The men are all German nationals; two are also Russian citizens and another is also a Ukrainian citizen. They are suspected of membership in a criminal organization and violating Germany's foreign trade and payments act.
Searches were carried out at properties elsewhere in the country, and another five suspects have not been detained, prosecutors said in a statement.
One of the arrested men, a German-Russian identified only as Nikita S. in line with German privacy rules, owns a trading company in Lübeck, prosecutors said. They alleged that, at least since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, he and the other suspects used the firm to procure goods for Russian industry and export them to Russia.
The men are accused of using at least one bogus firm in Lübeck and bogus customers in and outside the European Union, as well as a Russian firm which Nikita S. was also involved with, to cover up the deals and get around EU sanctions.
Russian state agencies are suspected to have been behind the network, and the end customers included at least 24 defense companies in Russia, prosecutors said.
Investigations so far show that the suspects arranged around 16,000 deliveries to Russia, and that the illicit deals were worth at least 30 million euros ($35.5 million), prosecutors said. They did not elaborate on what goods were sent.
