Фото: Morski Oddział Straży Granicznej
Polish border guards, together with the customs and tax service, have detained five people in a case involving the circumvention of sanctions on supplies of Belarusian and Russian plywood. According to the Maritime Unit of the Border Guard, the detainees are aged between 43 and 64. Four are Polish citizens and one is a Russian citizen. They are linked to companies based in the Pomeranian Voivodeship.
In 2022, the companies imported plywood from Kazakhstan, which in fact was of Belarusian and Russian origin. The investigation was launched in 2023. As a result, a sanctions evasion scheme was uncovered.
The detainees have been charged with “providing customs authorities with false information on the performance of contracts concluded before the introduction of sanctions, as well as importing timber products such as plywood and slats produced and exported from Belarus, which are subject to non-tariff restrictions introduced in connection with international sanctions”.
The investigation is ongoing. The Border Guard does not rule out further arrests.
It should be recalled that in 2022–2024, the Belarusian Investigative Center, in cooperation with partners from Poland, the Baltic states, the Cyber Partisans, and OCCRP, published several investigations into supplies of wood-processing products from Belarus in circumvention of sanctions, including plywood. At the beginning of this year, Earthsight also published an investigation on the same topic.