Lithuania’s intelligence service will uncover schemes to circumvent sanctions on Russia and Lithuanian firms involved in them will face punishment and “great shame”, intelligence chief Darius Jauniškis assures.
“I would just like to send a message to everyone trying to take part in these schemes and those involved in them: we will still find out about this, and those companies will be put to shame and face big fines,” the head of the State Security Department (VSD) told the radio Žiniu Radijas on Tuesday morning.
Ways to circumvent sanctions are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Lithuanian companies, he said, are sometimes involved in sanction circumvention, but he did not provide any more detail due to ongoing investigations.
“We see participation in schemes. There are companies that do not even know they are involved in schemes. We have cases where businesspeople turn to us and ask us to help them find out [...] who the final beneficiary is,” the VSD director said. “We need to fight this [sanctions circumvention]. Lithuania, I would say, is on the front line here,”
Lithuania’s law enforcement authorities have recently said they opened a pre-trial investigation into the supply of Lithuania-made high-tech equipment to Russia. A Russian citizen with a temporary residence permit in Lithuania is suspected of having organised the supply of this equipment to Russian defence and security industry research institutions, scientific institutions and institutes.
The VSD was involved in the investigation of the scheme.
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