Spain arrests 4 accused of shipping possible precursors for chemical weapons to Russia, breaching sanctions

Madrid — Spanish authorities on Tuesday said they had arrested four people suspected of orchestrating a sanctions-busting commercial network after intercepting more than 14 tons of chemical products bound for Russia.

“During the investigation, it was proven that internationally sanctioned chemicals, some of them possible precursors for chemical weapons or nerve agents, had been exported in the past using this company structure,” Spain’s national police force and its tax authority said in a joint statement, according to the Reuters news agency. The agencies did not say what chemicals had been seized.

The chemicals were discovered in a shipping container at the port in Barcelona, on Spain’s northeast coast, the authorities said, while the suspects were taken into custody in three villages near the city. A video posted on the National Police’s social media account showed officers unloading dozens of drums of unidentified chemicals at the port.

The investigation began in 2022 after Western countries imposed waves of sanctions on Russia to prevent it from acquiring equipment and technology that could be used to aid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

There have been no confirmed uses of chemical weapons by Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion in February 2022, though the U.S. warned his government against taking the step later that year amid debunked claims from the Kremlin that Ukraine had used such weapons. 

Spanish authorities said they had uncovered a company managed by “citizens of Russian origin,” who had developed a network to illegally supply chemical products to Russia, according to the joint statement from the law enforcement agencies.

The firm sent the goods to its Moscow-based subsidiary through a series of shadow companies in countries such as Armenia or Kyrgyzstan, with the deliveries reaching Russia by land, the police said.