A Ukrainian couple living in Guipúzcoa —who enjoyed a high standard of living, according to the seizures made by the National Police— were part of an international network that supplied material equipment to Russia. The company they ran, dedicated to the supply of aeronautical material, declared that it carried out operations in which the war material was destined for countries not subject to embargo. However, the real destination was Vladimir Putin’s federation. The exploitation of the operation occurred when a shipment of glass for war plane cockpits was about to leave European soil.
The investigation conducted by the National Court, as it is an alleged crime of smuggling by a criminal organization that has connections outside of Spain, has so far resulted in two arrests. The wife of the couple, a Ukrainian national, who has been sent to provisional prison, and a worker from the company that camouflaged war shipments, a Russian national, who has been released by the Investigating Court Number 5.
Since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, the Federation has been subjected to sanctions by the European Union, which is why it is looking for alternative ways to feed its war machine. The company that is the object of this investigation, which continues under summary secrecy, allegedly operated in these illegal channels. To do this, they had designed a sophisticated “customs engineering” with an international spectrum to carry out operations in which the destination of the goods was declared to be countries not subject to embargo, with Russia actually being their final destination.
More detainees are not ruled out. The agents of the General Information Commissariat learned that the Ukrainian couple would be eluding controls in June 2021, so their activity was prior to the start of the war in Ukraine.
According to sources close to the investigation, they had been profiting for years —this was the sole purpose and not the alleged terrorism— triangulating exports to avoid the controls of the sanctioning system. At the moment, there is no data on the amount of material that they have been able to send during all this time. The material seized at the customs of another European country that led to the arrests —cabins for combat boxes— seems to be only a tiny part of the total dual-use material —or directly from war— with which the organization has trafficked.
On this matter, it is expected that the analysis of the data obtained during the house searches, in which abundant documentation and computer effects were intervened, will shed light. Two high-end vehicles were also seized, reflecting the high standard of living that the married couple lived in the province of Gipuzkoa.
As reported by the National Police, the investigation remains open in order to prove other illegal commercial operations of the same nature already carried out as well as those that are underway and to proceed to the full identification, location and arrest of other individuals involved in these events.
