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Russian dealers are charging tens of thousands of euros to import luxury cars from Europe, as EU sanctions in response to Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine hit the country's wealthy.
The Financial Times has identified five Russian companies that offer to import cars from Europe with engines large enough to fit under them. the EU The sanctions, which were imposed in 2022 as part of a ban on exports of luxury goods to the country.
Online sales images from Russian dealer AvtoImport on the website Auto.ru of a BMW 530 d M Sport priced at Rbs7,200,070 ($68,200) show the car is in Germany.
As of mid-December, the vehicle was still on sale for €31,900 on the website of German dealer Autopartner BGL.
“The sales in Russia have nothing to do with us,” said a representative of Autopartner BGL, confirming that the car in question was in Germany and had not been sold in mid-December.
The FT has identified more than 50 luxury cars from 25 different German car dealerships on the Russian website Auto.ru, where Russian dealers offer an average markup of around 19,000 euros.
Smugglers often present themselves as intending to send a car to a third country. The FT tracked down a black Mercedes-Benz S350 sold in January 2024 to a Kyrgyz cab company by German car dealer Kessler & Haag. The vehicle was registered in March to a Moscow taxi company.
“We have the buyer, the payer, the exporter, you have the export documents. What else do we have to do?” said Artur Kessler, representative of Kessler & Haag. “I don't want to know what happens to the cars after . . . I just want to run my business, obey my duties and my rights.”
European car supply to Russia it comes despite the EU increasing sanctions since President Vladimir Putin ordered an all-out invasion of Ukraine, in an effort to strangle Moscow's war machine and stoke discontent with the regime.
Since the EU tightened restrictions in July on goods entering Belarus – and the third most popular country to import from Russia – exporters are using long and expensive shipping routes.
An AvtoImport sales representative told an FT reporter posing as a buyer that German cars shipped from Europe “are not transported by . . . Belarus . . . but to Turkey, Georgia, then to Russia”.
“Shipping cars from Europe has been a big challenge,” the person added.
They said it is now more expensive and faster to smuggle high-end German cars through South Korea than through the Baltics and Belarus, noting that the Asian country has imposed “small” sanctions on Russia.
At a cost of only about Rbs30,000, they added, the car's onboard systems can be changed from Korean to Russian.
A customs official in the Baltic state has confirmed that shipments of suspicious cars from Germany have dropped since Belarus sanctions were renewed.
“The overall situation is that the number of cars (is) decreasing, but there is still some movement,” said the official. “There are still cars that end up in Russia, originally going to Central Asian countries” such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
However, the FT is still identifying vehicles that have been shipped through Belarus since the sanctions were imposed.
A white Mercedes-Benz E220D with a license plate frame from the German car dealer Gruma Automobile was photographed in Russia in the fall, after he crossed the EU external border in September to Belarus. Gruma Automobile's marketing director, Michael Vieweger, denied that he had sold the car, saying “we do not deal with businesses and companies, organizations or people based in embargoed countries”.
Most German car dealers contacted by the FT said they were unaware their cars were being sold in Russia or advertised on Russian websites.
Markus Klapper of Autohaus Reisert said he has not seen Russian ads for his vehicles, but he is aware of a tactic where dealers copy details and images from dealers' websites to resell vehicles at a markup.
He suggested that Russian smugglers might use a similar tactic. FT identified several cars with Autohaus Reisert license plates published on Auto.ru.
EU officials are aware that luxury cars still end up in Russia, but their main focus is on avoiding sanctions related to more dangerous goods that could be used by the military.
An EU official in charge of sanctions said that the luxury cars that ended up in Russia were “undoubtedly small”, but that there was no big concern “if Russia pays more for these”.
The official also admitted that the EU sanctions against Belarus are not as strict as those imposed on Russia, meaning that some cars may be sent to Belarus.
A law enforcement official working on sanctions enforcement said that “Belarus sanctions are effective – but they will always have a way out”.