Lithuanian officials have raided companies and detained two people and a 2-million-euro fertiliser shipment as part of a pre-trial investigation into possible sanctions dodging and smuggling of Belarusian fertilisers into Lithuania.
“We are here to inform you about the Lithuanian Customs’ pre-trial investigation into possible circumvention of sanctions and fertiliser smuggling,” Darius Zvironas, head of the Customs Department, told a news conference on Thursday.
According to Mantas Kaušilas, head of the Customs Criminal Service, searches were carried out in companies in three Lithuanian cities on Wednesday. Two people were arrested, and a shipment of more than 3,000 tons of fertiliser, worth over 2 million euros, was detained in Klaipėda.
Artūras Urbelis, a chief prosecutor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Department, said that the pre-trial investigation is headed by the Klaipėda District Prosecutor’s Office. The probe was launched on January 13.
Lithuania’s investigative journalism centre Siena (Wall) has recently published an investigation showing that the transit of EU-sanctioned Belarusian fertilisers through Lithuania, suspended last year, has not in fact stopped.
Traced back to its only producer in Belarus, Grodno Azot, fertilisers continue to move by rail to Klaipėda-based Birių Krovinių Terminalas (Bulk Cargo Terminal, BKT), which is partly owned by Belarus’ state-owned company Belaruskali, according to the investigation carried out by Siena and its partners.
Read more: How sanctioned Belarusian firm channeled exports via Lithuania – investigation
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