This story is produced by Investigate Europe, a cross-border team of journalists based across the continent. Versions are being published with Arte (France), EU Observer (Belgium), Frontstory (Belgium) and InfoLibre (Span).
On 3 October 2024, a man in his 50s, born in the Soviet Union, joined a small but dubious club. Thanks to a sentence handed down by a court in Rotterdam, the man, whose identity has not been made public, became one of just 30 people known to have been given a custodial sentence for sanctions breaches in the European Union since 2017.
Investigators searching his office had uncovered nearly €260,000 in cash, wrapped in carbon paper and hidden at the bottom of a safe. When he was arrested, the defendant offered an unconventional explanation, court records reveal: part of the money had come from the sale of a car and part, he claimed, from his activities as a gigolo.
But an Excel file seized by Dutch authorities told a very different story. It revealed a commission system for sales of aeronautical spare parts to Tajik, Serbian and Turkish companies, with Russian firms as end customers: Ural Airlines, S7 Engineering and Siberia Airlines.
Statistically speaking, he was unlucky to be jailed.
There have only been 11 custodial sentences, stemming from nine cases, handed out for Russia-related sanction crimes since 2017 — eight have come since 2022. Most concerned the sale of prohibited goods – drones, electronics or machinery.
Sentences ranged from 40 days to seven years, the latter in the case of a German individual charged in November 2023 for exporting machinery which can be used to manufacture sniper rifles. The average sentence was three years.
The data is part of an Investigate Europe analysis of convictions relating to EU sanctions law, based on case information compiled by a lawyer at firm Duane Morris.
Since 2017 only 30 custodial sentences have been handed out around Europe for violations of EU sanctions law, the data indicates.
These included a prosecution for the import of illegal timber from Myanmar, the export of gas turbines to Iran and several terrorism-related prosecutions. On top of this, approximately €430m in fines have been imposed for sanctions law breaches since 2017, Duane Morris’s Mark Handley estimates.
There are currently 36 sanction regimes in place at EU level, targeting approximately 5,000 individuals and entities. Half relate to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sanctions are decided unanimously among the 27 member states, but their implementation falls to national authorities. Monitoring at both the EU and national level is often incomplete, hindered by insufficient human and financial resources, as well as poor coordination.
For example, the European Commission unit responsible for sanctions employs just 25 people, Investigate Europe learnt through a freedom of information request. They are tasked not just with following the work of hundreds of competent national authorities, but also with preparing upcoming sanction packages.
“If they burn out, I can understand why,” one national sanctions expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
However, David O'Sullivan, the EU's special sanctions envoy, estimates that across different departments, there are 80 to 100 EU officials working on the issue.
“Is it enough? Probably not. But then the public service always feels it never has quite enough staff and everybody else thinks there are probably too many public servants,” he comments.
Across all EU staff and experts in the different member states, there are 300 and 350 people coordinating implementation. To compare, Washington probably employs between 700 and 800 people working on analysing and monitoring all sanctions, O’Sullivan told Investigate Europe.
On enforcement, it is very hard to get a clear overview of just how much states are prosecuting. Investigate Europe contacted authorities in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Portugal and the UK.
In most cases, there was no response.
Ireland said that investigations were underway, but that not a single prosecution had taken place since 2014, when the first restrictive measures on Russia were adopted for the invasion of Crimea.
Poland, for its part, reported 275 investigations in progress, but provided no information on any past convictions.
After countless exchanges with Belgian authorities, they were unable to provide figures. “It is not currently possible to distinguish cases relating to European sanctions from other cases in the database of the Public Prosecutor's Office,” a spokesperson for the body explained.
In Germany, a recent investigation concluded that there were just under 2,000 investigations underway. Across the EU, there have been 4,000 investigations since 2022, according to Duane Morris.
However, there could be more investigations or convictions than member states are letting on.
"France hasn't published statistics on the total number of investigations that have been started since the start of 2022, or something like that. But there is absolutely enforcement activity going on,” Handley said.
The EU Commission is often only informed of investigations and judicial proceedings once they have been wrapped up, one well-informed official told Investigate Europe on condition of anonymity. The commission did not provide any information on current cases when approached by Investigate Europe.
To compound matters, there is often a lack of clarity among member states about what exactly the texts of sanctions regulations mean in practice. Authorities regularly make differing interpretations of how to implement sanctions on the ground, as well as how strongly to enforce them.
For example, many member states only prosecute when there is intention to circumvent sanctions.
“You know those awful spy movies where someone casually leaves a briefcase by a bench, and a few minutes later, someone else comes by to pick it up?” Handley explains. “That kind of scenario, where you're intentionally making something accessible to a sanctioned person, is totally illegal.”
But the Netherlands has a stricter interpretation, not necessarily requiring intention for someone to be prosecuted for breaking sanctions rules. The Dutch are considered some of the best at executing EU sanctions, even though they only have about 16 people responsible for implementing them.
EU authorities are aware of the enforcement problem.
A new law, set to be introduced from May 2025, should start sharpening and harmonising the penalties assigned to violations of sanctions. That could possibly mean that more people join the rather exclusive club of those sentenced for sanctions violations.
Pascal Hansens is a reporter with Investigate Europe.
Pascal Hansens is a reporter with Investigate Europe.