Russia transports large quantities of its fuel through Latvia, delivering it from St Petersburg to Riga on tankers and then sending it to Ukraine, where imports have been banned since 2022. claim the authors of the program “Nothing personal” (Nekā personīga) on the Latvian television channel TV3.
An article on its site says that the program review was two months ago. informed about this transport under false documents, however, the customs police never opened a case and the transport would continue. “Dozens of Ukrainian tankers daily take Russian goods out of Riga, bypassing Ukrainian sanctions,” explain the authors of the program.
TV3 claims that since the beginning of 2023, three tankers with Russian fuel arrived in the port of Riga from St. 100 million.
The editorial staff of Nekā personīga writes that it obtained a quality certificate obtained by the buyers of this fuel, and that it would have been issued by Orlen Lietuva.
“When our program asked this company if the imported petroleum products were really related to it, Orlen said the certificate was fake and turned to the customs department, where he learned that other similar documents benchmark had been used in January,” the TV said.
A representative of Orlen Lietuva told Nothing Personal’s correspondent that the fake certificate was filled out in the same form used by the company itself, but “the numbers and quality characteristics are different there.”
The Tax and Customs Police Department of the State Tax Service (SRS) of Latvia decided not to open a criminal investigation while the documents were being assessed by the State Police, but TV3 turned to the prosecutor’s office and initiated a review of the alleged violations.
“Now the materials are still in the SRS customs police, at the stage of departmental expertise. At the same time, it is clear from the prosecutor’s response that we are talking about a ship that arrived in December, and not about three shipments that were identified by the editors of Nekā personīga in 2023,” the authors of the statement said. issue. emphasize.
According to them, the stories about the transport of Russian fuel caught the attention of the Minister of Finance of Latvia, Arvils Asheradens, who, after viewing them, “turned to the head of the state tax service to ask him how such a situation could have arisen.” The head of the Latvian Ministry of Finance said he did not understand the nature of the interaction between the departments in solving such an important issue.
“It would seem that there should have been a very quick, ultra-quick reaction from the state when an obvious fact happened. It’s not that the services didn’t react, but they reacted formally,” the official said.
Nekā personīga, after reviewing the State Revenue Service’s decision to decline to file criminal charges, came to the conclusion that since only the December shipment was mentioned therein, subsequent alleged transports and related documents did not yet been checked.
The Director General of the State Tax Administration, Ieva Jaunzeme, assures that all the cargoes likely to be suspected are on Latvian territory, because “Ukraine has not accepted them”. The head of the service refuses further comments, explaining this by reluctance to pose a threat to the ongoing investigation.
In January, the program “Nothing personal” showed photos showing several dozen tankers from Ukraine near the Pars terminal. In mid-February, the program’s correspondents shot twice in this area, and the view was the same. “On April 4, about ten trucks with Ukrainian license plates were waiting on the territory of the terminal and next to it,” say the editors of the Latvian television program.
The Latvian Foreign Ministry clarified that from February 5, 2023, it is forbidden to import Russian fuel into the territory of the republic, but it is still allowed to sell products imported before this date. “On the other hand, the import of Russian fuel into Ukraine has been banned for about a year. The fake certificates were most likely destined for the Ukrainian market,” suggests Nekā personīga.
At the beginning of April, the State Revenue Service of Latvia published a report on its work for 2022. In this regard, tax officials admitted that out of 150 criminal proceedings initiated due to the violation of sanctions against Russia and Belarus, only three were brought to the stage of criminal proceedings. And about. Head of the Tax and Customs Police Department of the State Tax Administration, Dairis Anins, explained this by the fact that the process of applying for international assistance is complex and time-consuming.
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