Belarusian companies circumvent EU sanctions by transporting wood: some of it also goes to Lithuania

Stanislavas Ivaškevičius, head of the Belarusian Research Center, says that officially Kazakhstan, a country with few forests and a wood importer, exports about 120 million tons to the European Union (EU). EUR worth of wood. According to him, it is most likely Belarusian wood, some of which also enters Lithuania across the border.

“We continue to see intensive growth of wood imports from Kazakhstan to the European Union. From the documents we were lucky enough to get, we can say that some of that wood is Belarusian. In addition, the entire supply is suspect, as Kazakhstan’s forest cover is only 4 percent, and the country itself imports wood. And half of the existing forests are composed of steppe wood, which is not very suitable for industrial processing”, S. Ivaškevičius said to LRT radio on Monday.

“Part of it travels to Lithuania. It gets here because the wood is imported to Poland and further exported around the EU. And Lithuania does not check the borders, which are not with Belarus. Smugglers bring in through the back door,” he added.

However, he mentions that this does not indicate the complete ineffectiveness of the sanctions, because before the sanctions, Belarus exported 1 billion worth of wood. euros.

According to the head of the research center, it is no longer necessary to establish new fictitious companies to circumvent sanctions, it is enough to falsify documents using stolen signatures and seals, which are pasted into the document with the help of different programs.

“We see that new ways of circumventing sanctions are emerging. Now it is enough to “draw” the documents and it works at the Polish border. Timber enters Kazakhstan already with forged documents. After analyzing the received documents, we saw that the signatures and seals are identical, pixels showing the change are visible around the graphically pasted objects,” he commented.

“After calling the specified persons, one of them openly said that they were transporting wood from Belarus. And the sender from Kazakhstan assured that he knows this company, that he communicated with it and signed a memorandum, but the company disappeared, the business failed. We can imagine that all the company needed was an example of such a stamp,” he added.

S. Ivaškevičius said that after informing the authorities in Lithuania and Poland about this, they replied that they would start pre-trial investigations regarding the circumvention of sanctions. But, according to him, it is unlikely that such circumventions will be prevented without the help of central EU institutions.

At that time, the Polish customs claims that it cannot physically check all cargo, and does not consider such actions to be serious crimes, explains political scientist Martynas Malužinas. According to him, fines for such actions are often small, reaching over 100 euros.

“Currently, the head of the Polish State Tax Inspectorate recently announced that after the sanctions come into effect, wood from Russia and Belarus, starting in 2022. March 5 about 100 shipments were detained, where there are doubts about the violation of sanctions. For half, evidence was provided to open an investigation into the sanctions reports. And I think there will be information after the investigation. But the important fact is that Poland does not recognize such timber transportation as a crime,” he explained to LRT radio.

“Often fines are symbolic, sometimes amounting to just 115-120 euros,” he mentioned.

He also mentioned that such circumvention of sanctions can be partially tolerated due to the crisis in the Polish wood industry, which makes the products less competitive.

Reacting to this, Jurgis Adomavičius, the shareholder and founder of the customs broker “Bunasta”, assures that legal authorities should solve the problems of circumventing sanctions and transporting goods through Poland to Lithuania. According to him, non-transparent companies are to blame for circumvention, which is no longer the responsibility of overburdened customs officers.

“I wouldn’t throw stones at the customs office, because the customs office does a lot of work and it’s not their job, which maybe hinders businesses. (…) This should really be addressed not to the customs, but to the criminal services. I unequivocally think that non-transparent companies are the most guilty,” said J. Adamavičius.

“We hear about forgery of stamps and forgery of documents here. We are talking about a real criminal here, who should not answer with 100 euro fines,” he mentioned.

He also said that in order to reduce the willingness of some companies to contribute to the circumvention of sanctions, it would be necessary to ensure a transparent supply of wood.

“I would just focus on ensuring a transparent supply of construction materials, how to ensure that those materials are sourced from the right countries,” he assured.