A clandestine Russian military intelligence company network was able to send sensitive Western technology to Moscow for years using a Belgium company to circumvent sanctions, a De Tijd investigation that had access to thousands of Swedish court documents has revealed.
On an undisclosed date in a quiet Stockholm suburb police raided a white villa in an operation involving a helicopter. Inside, the residents were pinned to the ground before they could react.
The raid marked the end of Sergei Skvortsov's double life. Skvortsov, a Russian national, had been living in Sweden for years, operating under the guise of a legitimate businessman. Among the evidence collected from his residence was a business card from Hasa-Invest, a Belgian company.
Shadowy exports
Born in Moscow in 1963, Skvortsov relocated to Sweden in the 1990s. With his Russian wife, he established Instrument Electronics in Stockholm in 2005, a company specialising in the import and export of microchips and high-tech components.
The primary client of this seemingly innocuous company was Radioexport, a Russian high-tech electronics firm deeply intertwined with Russian intelligence. By 2016, Radioexport had been renamed Network Technologies and was added to the US sanctions list due to its activities.
This Russian firm was part of a covert network of companies in the US and Sweden, dedicated to bypassing sanctions and embargoes. Their primary objective was to procure advanced Western technology, including semiconductors and microprocessors vital for military applications like fighter planes, missile systems, and satellites. Some of these components were later identified in Russian weaponry used in Russia's war against Ukraine.
To circumvent a 2014 Swedish ban on exporting such technology to Russia, Skvortsov's company turned to Belgian intermediaries. Official records consulted by De Tijd indicate that Instrument Electronics sold products to Hasa-Invest, a company with just one employee, its owner, Hans De Geetere. These products were repackaged in Belgium and then shipped to Radioexport in Moscow. Only once Belgian authorities managed to intercept a shipment were the sanction violations discovered.
Russian intelligence
According to court documents, a pivotal figure in this operation was Vladimir K. – a 77-year-old veteran of the Russian military intelligence service, GRU. Residing in Belgium, Vladimir K. introduced Skvortsov to the Belgian route.
Despite his LinkedIn profile listing him as the "commercial director" at Hasa-Invest, court documents suggest that Vladimir K. controlled Skvortsov's Swedish company from behind the scenes since 2012, using a Cypriot shell company as a front. From Belgium, Vladimir K. maintained connections with Radioexport and other GRU officers in Moscow, often meeting them in a local Belgian restaurant.
Intercepted chat messages between Skvortsov and De Geetere from 2017 to 2020 revealed discussions about US companies involved in the network. In 2017, they discussed a US tech firm that had traded with Hasa-Invest in 2016, which was later raided by the FBI. Four individuals, including two New Yorkers and two Russians, were arrested for illicitly exporting sensitive technology to Russia. Financial disputes over millions of euros also emerged from these intercepted communications.
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By September 2022, Hasa-Invest was added to the US sanctions list, not for dealings with Russia, but with China. This sanction was lifted after 180 days. The company declared bankruptcy later that year, having failed to report its financial results since 2014. De Geetere established a new company in Cyprus the year afterwards. Skvortsov's trial for "illegal intelligence activities" in Sweden and the US recently took place in Stockholm, with the verdict scheduled for October 26.
In a statement, Hans De Geetere, former CEO of Hasa-Invest, defended his actions, stating, "We exported trinkets, not top technology… I saw the licences and they were okay."
De Geetere dismissed the allegations against Skvortsov, emphasising his long-standing relationship with Vladimir K., whom he claimed to have known for 30 years without knowledge of his intelligence background.
