The tractors of the Vilnius company that received a million fine were “disappearing” in Belarus Business

Tractors are a very popular product in Russia. One of the reasons for this is the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine. The defending Ukrainian army is actively bombarding the supply chains of the Russian forces, in which the tractors occupy a very important place. So it is understandable why the European Union has banned the export of these vehicles to Russia for a long time.

As advertised In a statement from the Customs Departmentthe company was punished for the fact that “when concluding transactions with companies registered in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Turkey, it did not ensure compliance with the restrictions set by international sanctions implemented in the Republic of Lithuania”. True, the Customs Department did not name the company in its report – the name of Biovardos was soon revealed by the news agency BNS.

Based on the leaked data, we were able to reconstruct part of the trade chain identified by the Customs Department. This is how we discovered a number of trucks exported to Kazakhstan, but ended up in Russia – and not after resale on the Kazakh market, but shortly after the expensive cargo crossed the Lithuanian border.

‍Instead of Kazakhstan – to Moscow

Data on the activities of Biovardos in the first half of 2023 reached “Siena”. We received information about more than six dozen tractor semi-trailers that the Vilnius company exported from Lithuania during that period, declaring trade with Kazakhstan. The value of the tractors sold to the alleged Kazakhs in just six months is about 6 million euros.

The buyer of the tractors was the Kazakh company “Safelogistic KZ”. The company was established only in 2022. in April – a few weeks after the invasion of the Russian forces in Ukraine, after the EU had already announced the first packages of sanctions against Moscow. Publicly available data show that Safelogistic KZ operates and pays taxes to the national budget. True, perhaps not as much tax as one would expect from a business that imported dozens of trucks.

Trucks on the border / 15min/Scanpix photo.

Last year, Safelogistic KZ paid almost 15 million tenge in taxes to the budget of Kazakhstan. However, after converting Kazakh tenge to euros, only a little more than 27 thousand remain from the million number. euros. And the data available to “Siena” show that several dozen Kazakh companies allegedly bought tractors that never arrived in the country of destination.

All six dozen trucks went to Moscow.

Kazakhs became Belarusians

Among the export data was a very specific identifier – the VIN number of each semi-trailer, which accompanies the vehicle from production to the end of operation. We checked this data in the Russian international trade database available to “Siena”. It didn’t take long for us to make sure that all the tractors sold by Biovarda to the alleged Kazakhs during the period under review ended up in Russia – they were purchased by the Moscow-registered company Polar.

Analysis of the VIN numbers clearly showed that these are the same tractors that Biovarda exported to the supposed Kazakhstan. However, in Russia, the vehicles ended up with another supplier – the Belarusian company “Belšintorgservis”. The activities of this company bypassing sanctions and supplying Russia with tractors revealed a few months ago Belarusian journalistic research center “Biuro”. True, at that time the name of “Biovardos” did not become public.

And after examining the chronology of the journeys of the “Biovarda” tractors, it can be easily concluded that the vehicle did not visit Kazakhstan. In Russia, they were cleared by customs within a few or a dozen days after crossing the Lithuanian border.

“The case is ongoing, we are working”

In 2021, before the war, Biovarda did not operate and did not receive any income. In the first year of the war, the turnover of the Vilnius company shot up to 2.8 million. euros. What it was last year is unknown, because the company does not comply with the obligation to submit financial reports to the Register Center. However, there is no doubt that last year’s numbers should be even more impressive.

“Siena” analyzed the journeys of about six dozen tractor-trailers from Biovarda to Moscow. The value of one tractor varies from 45 thousand. up to 136 thousand euros, and the total value of exports to the supposed Kazakhs is about 6 million euros. And this is only half a year’s worth of data, covering just one country named by the Customs Department, which was used as a cover for the export of tractors to Russia.

When asked to comment on how many tractors “Biovarda” delivered to the Russian market, company manager Andrejs Božko did not want to answer the question, but did not hide that he had problems with customs.

“What am I going to say? The case is ongoing, we are working,” said A. Božko.

Trying to ask a question about truck trips to Russia and intermediaries operating in Belarus, the businessman hung up.

13.6 million “Biovarda”, which received a EUR fine, is the most severely punished Lithuanian company so far, which has been subject to sanctions due to violation of sanctions. In second place in terms of the size of the fine is the crypto-currency operator Payeer, which was fined a bundle by the Financial Crimes Investigation for a total of 9.3 million. amount of euros. The activities of Payeer in helping to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Russia were revealed by the investigation of Siena and foreign partners “Tales from the Crypt”.