Although the EU sanctions imposed almost immediately after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have legally banned the importation of luxury foreign cars from Europe to Russia, it never actually stopped. Having studied the data of Import Genius, an aggregator of customs declarations, Agentstvo discovered a large channel of supply of VIP cars and motorcycles from Estonia. Between November 2022 and April 2024, no less than 142 cars and 6 motorcycles worth more than € 18 million made their way into Russia through this country.
Details. The first shipments through Estonia that Agentstvo managed to find in Import Genius date back to late 2022, when six Ducati motorcycles and a Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG 4matic+ convertible were imported into Russia. Another 141 vehicles have entered the country via Estonia between late 2023 and April 2024. Import Genius does not provide more recent data.
- The cars were shipped by two companies — Estonian Dzallair and Hong Kong-based Ningbo Industries Company Limited (NICL). The delivery point of the cars and motorcycles in some declarations was Moscow, while the rest were to be delivered to Minsk and Baku, but still ended up in Russia. This is evidenced by the list of consignees — the cars allegedly going to Baku and Minsk were intended for the structures of the Avtodom group of companies. In addition, Agentstvo managed to find ads for the sale of 20% of these cars (16 in total) on the websites of Avtodom structures in different regions of Russia.
- Avtodom and its dealership center in the Altufyevo district of Moscow received three Lamborghini Urus, 19 Porsche (Taycan, Macan, Cayman, Carrera, Cayenne, 911), 40 Audi (A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, RSQ8 and RS7) and one Mercedes-Benz convertible. All six Ducati motorcycles were delivered to Prokhor Petunov, the foreman of the locksmith shop of the Ducati Altufyevo dealership center of Avtodom, and his wife (according to her VK status) Nika Petunova.
- MB Rus (until April 2023 it was an official distributor of Mercedes-Benz, and then the company was bought by Avtodom) received 42 Mercedes-Benz worth more than € 6.4 million. Among the cars intended for the company were Mercedes-Benz S 63 E AMG (worth € 245,000), seven Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 SUVs (worth at least € 217,000) and six Mercedes-Benz Maybach S 580 sedans (worth at least € 195,000).
- The remaining 37 cars — four Lamborghini Urus and 33 Mercedes-Benz — also made it to Russia, but it is unclear from the Import Genius database who they were delivered to. Based on the sale ads, Agentstvo determined that six cars from this batch were sold through the showrooms of MB Rus.
Who drives the VIP cars? With the help of leaked databases, Agentstvo has revealed the fate of four foreign cars imported in violation of sanctions.
- The Italian crossover Lamborghini Urus worth € 315 thousand was purchased in April 2024 by the company Kupromet OCM, according to the leaked data of the Ingosstrakh insurance company. Kupromet OCM supplies rolled metal products, its customers include defense industry enterprises (UEC Saturn, Electrokhimpribor, Oktyabr PA). The company is owned by local entrepreneur Sergei Plekhov. The purchase of a luxury car attracted the attention of local media.
- Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 and Mercedes-Benz GLS 450 D 4matic SUVs were leased by Stack, a Tyumen-based forestry company, according to the data of the Fedresurs service. Rosneft, Gazprom, Sibur and Novatek are listed among the company’s partners on its website. The company is owned by a major local businessman Sergei Drogalev.
- The Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG 4matic+ convertible, according to leaks from Ingosstrakh, was leased in February 2023 to the Remenergostroy construction company, owned by the St. Petersburg theater actor Taron Aleksanyan (who has performed at the Social Art Theater, the Tsekh Theater and the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater). In May 2023, this car hit a pedestrian in Moscow, according to data from the leak aggregator Avinfobot.
Suppliers and buyers. The main supplier in this scheme was the Estonian company Dzallair. It has been involved in the transportation of luxury cars and motorcycles since 1993, but its business really took off only with the outbreak of the war. In 2022, the firm’s revenue increased 38 times — from € 114 thousand to € 4.3 million, and its profit amounted to € 410 thousand (in 2021 it recorded a loss of a thousand euros), according to the Estonian Commercial Register. The company did not submit reports for 2023 and 2024.
- The company was founded by Sultan Serikbayev, a Kazakh native, but it is now owned and managed by his relative Diana Serikbayeva, who lives in Tallinn. Until about 2016, Serikbayeva went by the surname Kostina while she was married to a resident of Pskov, Russia.
- Agentstvo got in touch with Serikbaeva. When asked about the supply of cars to Russia, the woman said that «this can’t be true» and «it doesn’t really exist,» and then hung up. A few hours later, Agentstvo journalist received a call back from a hidden number from a man who introduced himself as Serikbayeva’s husband. He asked who she was talking to, what was the reason for the interest in her business and how the journalist got the data on car deliveries to Russia. He did not comment on the topic itself.
- Avtodom has been operating since 1992 and specializes in the sale of luxury cars. In 2023, it ranked fourth in terms of revenue among all dealer holdings in Russia, Forbes wrote.
- In April 2023, it acquired Mercedes-Benz’s Russian assets, including Mercedes-Benz Rus (now MB Rus) and Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Rus (a car plant near Moscow). Its main owner and CEO is entrepreneur Andrei Olkhovsky, whom Forbes ranked fifth in the list of the main beneficiaries of the acquisition of foreign assets after the beginning of the war.
- Anna Utkina, communications director of Avtodom, told Agentstvo that the group does not comment on the topic of parallel imports.
- Ningbo Industries Company Limited was established in Hong Kong in August 2022, the firm is owned by Chinese citizen Ma Tianshu. Ningbo’s website states that the company is engaged in trade of refined petroleum products and metals, logistics and distribution, as well as helping its customers to conduct transactional and payment operations.
Context. In March, the European Union imposed a ban on the export to Russia of cars worth more than € 50,000. Since then, such cars have been brought into the country by parallel imports. Some of them are smuggled. In December 2023, Verstka and Bureau together with hackers from the CyberPartizans group uncovered a scheme of supplying premium cars to Russia via Poland and Belarus, involving more than 30 Belarusian companies. $ 100 million worth of cars were imported into Russia through this scheme. One of the recipients turned out to be the same Avtodom. The Financial Times also wrote about the smuggling of cars via Belarus in December 2024.
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