Russian smugglers import luxury cars from Europe despite sanctions.

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Russian smugglers are demanding tens of thousands of euros to import luxury cars from Europe as European Union sanctions hit the country’s wealthy following Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

The Financial Times has identified five Russian companies that have offered to smuggle cars of sufficient engine size from Europe. European Union In the year The ban on the export of luxury goods to the country was lifted in 2022.

For the BMW 530 DM Sport, which is priced at Rbs7,200,070 ($68,200), images of an online ad from Russian importer AvtoImport on website Auto.Ru show the car is available in Germany.

As of mid-December, the vehicle is still on sale for €31,900 on German dealer Autopartner BGL’s website.

“The ads that are running in Russia have nothing to do with us,” said a representative of Autopartner BGL, confirming that the car in question was still in Germany and hadn’t been sold as of mid-December.

FT identified more than 50 luxury cars from 25 different German car brands on the Russian website Auto.ru, which Russian importers were offering for an average of €19,000.

Traffickers often pretend that they intend to export the car to a third country. The FT obtained a black Mercedes-Benz S350 sold by German car dealer Kessler & Haag to a Kyrgyz taxi company in January 2024. The vehicle was registered to the Moscow Taxi Company in March.

“We have buyer, payer, exporter, export documents. What else can we do? Kessler & Haag representative Arthur Kessler said. “I don’t want to know what happens to the cars behind. . . I just want to run my business and respect my obligations and rights.

Supply of European cars to Russia The European Union has tightened sanctions after President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in an effort to suppress Moscow’s weapons arsenal and stoke discontent with the regime.

Since the European Union in July tightened restrictions on luxury goods entering Belarus — once a popular third country for entry into Russia — smugglers are using longer and more expensive routes to transport the vehicles.

An Autoimport sales representative told an FT reporter posing as a buyer that German cars imported from Europe were “shipped by . . . Belarus . . . But it will go to Turkey, Georgia, and then to Russia”.

“Exporting cars from Europe has become very challenging,” the man added.

Shipping high-end German cars through the Baltics and Belarus via South Korea is now cheaper and faster, he said, noting that the Asian country has imposed “minimum” sanctions on Russia.

They added that the car’s onboard systems can be changed from Korean to Russian for only 30,000 birr.

The Baltic country’s customs authorities have confirmed that suspicious cars exported from Germany have decreased since the Belarus sanctions were renewed.

“The general situation is that the number of cars is decreasing, but there is still some flow,” the official said. “There are still some cars that end up in Russia, first they are taken to Central Asian countries,” such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

However, the FT still identified vehicles that were transported through Belarus after the sanctions were tightened.

A white Mercedes-Benz E220D with a license plate frame from German carmaker Gruma Auto was photographed in Russia after crossing the EU’s external border into Belarus in September. Gruma Automobile’s head of sales, Michael Weuger, said he was unable to sell the car and said: “We do not do any business with companies, organizations or individuals from embargoed countries.”

Several German car dealers the FT spoke to did not know their cars were being sold to Russia or advertised on Russian websites.

Autohaus Reisert’s Markus Clapper said he had not seen the Russian ads for the vehicles, but was aware of a tactic used by brokers to resell vehicles by copying details and images from dealers’ websites.

He suggested that Russian smugglers may use a similar strategy. FT identified several cars with Autohaus Reisert license plates advertised on Auto.ru.

EU officials know that luxury cars will still end up in Russia, but their main focus is on fighting sanctions related to more dangerous goods that can be used by the military.

According to an EU official who works on sanctions, the fact that luxury cars still end up in Russia is “undoubtedly a bit dark”, but “as long as Russia pays more for them” it is not a concern.

The official acknowledged that EU sanctions against Belarus are not as strict as those against Russia, meaning some cars could still be sent to Belarus.

“The Belarus sanctions have had an impact – but they always have a way out,” a law enforcement official said of the sanctions.