Poland allows sanctioned timber from Belarus into EU under forged documents

Sanctioned Belarusian timber is being imported into the EU through Poland with forged documents that state the goods come from Kazakhstan. Polish customs officials have said they do not have the physical capacity to verify the authenticity of all customs declarations.

Source: a joint investigation by the Belarusian Investigative Center, the investigative journalism project Skhemy, and Gazeta Wyborcza

Details: The investigators found that imports of wood from Kazakhstan to the EU surged after sanctions were imposed on timber from Belarus. According to Eurostat, in 2022 wood products worth €14 million were imported from Kazakhstan, but in 2023 this figure increased almost fivefold to €68 million.

The journalists analysed a contract between two companies, Kazakhstan's Nurr-electro and Poland's PLRBL, for the supply of pine palisades worth almost €1 million. The contract is dated October 2022, with delivery due in early 2023.

"It turned out that the signatures and stamps on the document from Kazakhstan's Nurr-electro had been forged and, as two independent graphic design experts noted, had been applied to the documents using a photo editor.

In addition, Arman Tuliyevich, Nurr-electro’s lawyer, told the journalists that ‘There have been no financial transactions under such an agreement, let alone goods’ and ‘We don’t have a seal like that.’ A representative of the Belarusian haulage company Gallardo admitted that the goods were from Belarus: ‘We didn’t bring it from Kazakhstan, we brought it from Belarus, [the lorries] were loaded there’," the article says.

Aleh Yanovich, the sole owner of the Polish purchaser, PLRBL, refused to answer the journalists’ questions.

Using market sources, the investigators discovered that the timber was being shipped from the warehouse of a Belarusian company owned by the aforementioned Yanovich.

Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in response to a request from the journalists, stated that the issue of circumventing sanctions is not within their scope of responsibility. The Polish Customs Service stated that they do not have the physical capacity to check all customs declarations.

"Poland's Interior Ministry replied to say that it has launched a probe into the facts set out in the request, but it has so far refrained from commenting," the article says.

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