Companies linked to a Russian spy ring have resumed buying machinery from a German toolmaker — just months after the manufacturer was warned about sales to the same smuggling network.
Analysis by the Financial Times has established that Heller Tools, a Dinklage-based group founded in the 19th century, sold a total of $1.2mn of drills and other tools to companies linked to the so-called Serniya smuggling operation.
According to the US Department of Justice, the Serniya network was set up under the direction of Russian intelligence services to circumvent EU and US sanctions and obtain equipment for the Russian defence industry.
The case encapsulates the difficulties the EU faces in cracking down on Russia’s sourcing of essential goods from within Europe.
Russian filings show that Heller declared $860,000 of sales to a Moscow company called Trading House Treydtuls, which is linked to the Serniya network, between the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and June 2023. The FT first reported on this buying network in May 2023.
Customs records show that Heller’s exports to Treydtuls stopped in June 2023, shortly after the FT approached Heller with questions about its trade with Treydtuls. But by September Heller had started to sell goods to a different Russian firm called Tireks. This company, which bought a further $300,000 of goods from Heller, was founded in June by a man who had been employed by Treydtuls.
Heller said it complied with “all legal requirements”, repeating a statement it first sent to the FT last year.
“When exporting to countries, we generally check whether customers are on sanctions lists or behave in accordance with the law,” said Henning Warrink, Heller chief executive. “If we have knowledge that companies are on sanctions lists or violate legal requirements, we will immediately stop the business relationship or will not enter into a business relationship at all and not deliver any goods there.”
The construction tools sold by Heller, such as saws and drills for steel or masonry, were not included on EU export control lists until December 2023, after the sales to Tireks. They were added because they might “contribute in particular to the enhancement of Russian industrial capacities”.
Olena Bilousova, a sanctions expert at the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, said that western companies should “think about their moral obligations”. “Don’t sell things to Russians that can be used for the war effort — even if they are not export-controlled.”
The FT previously uncovered Treydtuls’ links to Russian company Robin Trade, which US investigators described as a front for Serniya Engineering, the company at the heart of the network. Both Robin Trade and Treydtuls were owned by a businessman called Alexey Zibyrov.
Serniya Engineering and Robin Trade were sanctions-listed by the EU in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Clients of the Serniya network include the defence ministry, the state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec and Rosatom, the state atomic energy giant. Treydtuls and Tireks have not been listed.
Artem Klimenko, a former shareholder and employee of Treydtuls, is the owner of Tireks. Klimenko said that he had no relationship with the Serniya network and that Zibyrov was merely a silent partner in Treydtuls.
He told the FT that he started Tireks to make a “clean slate” after he was told that Zibyrov’s other businesses in telecoms equipment had became “toxic”. The tools “were sold only through specialised DIY networks and exclusively for peaceful purposes”, Klimenko said.
Zibyrov said: “Klimenko actually has nothing to do with the telecommunication equipment business. His business is exclusively related to construction tools and accessories for personal use.”
However, Klimenko took over from Zibyrov as the chief executive of a Russian import company shortly after Robin Trade was sanctioned in 2022. This other company, Finch Impex, has since imported $2.2mn of goods, largely from Taiwan and China.
The Finch Impex imports include parts for oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers. Ukraine’s allies have put this laboratory equipment on the “high-priority” list of export controlled items.
Klimenko told the FT that he “does not want to appear in further transactions in these areas of activity”.
Officials have compared cracking down on Russian companies to a game of cat and mouse. An EU official working on sanctions said it was vital to stop flows from European companies and improve their due diligence. “Member states should really step up their implementation,” the official said. “Authorities and companies should do their homework.”
In 2022, the US Department of Justice charged five people linked to Serniya with conspiring to procure military-grade and dual-use technologies for Russian defence companies.
Among them was Vadim Konoshchenok, who is suspected of being an FSB colonel and was arrested by Estonian border guards after attempting to cross into Russia.
According to the US Department of Justice, he was “stopped at the Estonian border with 35 different types of semiconductors . . . as well as thousands of US-made 6.5mm bullets, which are used in military sniper rifles”.
Konoshchenok, who has been extradited to the US, pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching US sanctions and export controls.