Spain’s public prosecutor has closed a pretrial investigation into MaxamCorp International S.L. that was opened after a report by The Insider exposed the company’s Russian factories, which continue to produce explosives despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian antiwar activists living in Spain filed a complaint that prompted the probe in June. Three months later, the prosecutor at Spain’s National Court dropped the investigation, despite the factories not halting their operations.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/43400129

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Spain’s public prosecutor has closed a pretrial investigation into MaxamCorp International S.L. that was opened after a report by The Insider exposed the company’s Russian factories, which continue to produce explosives despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian antiwar activists living in Spain filed a complaint that prompted the probe in June. Three months later, the prosecutor at Spain’s National Court dropped the investigation, despite the factories not halting their operations.

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In the decision declining to press charges […] the prosecutor, without citing specific sources, said Maxam did not export explosive substances to Russia in 2024-2025 and that in 2024 the company lost control of its Russian subsidiaries.

The Insider asked an independent sanctions-compliance lawyer to comment on the prosecutor’s ruling.

Alex Prezanti, [an independent sanctions-compliance lawyer and] co-executive director of the nonprofit State Capture Accountability Project (SCAP), said the prosecutor examined the evidence selectively:

“In his decision to close the investigation against Maxam International, the Spanish prosecutor appears to have only examined events in 2024-2025 — once Maxam had lost control of its Russian subsidiaries. However, the complaint and the Insider’s reporting also allege that Maxam International provided its Russian subsidiaries with materials and intellectual property for the production of explosives between 2022 and 2023.

The reporting also alleges that in 2023, Maxam appears to have accepted dividends on profits accrued by its subsidiaries in Russia from a direct supplier to the Russian military industrial complex. It is therefore unfortunate, in my opinion, that the Spanish prosecutor omitted the events of 2022-2023 from his examination. Whilst I have not seen enough evidence to conclude whether there was criminal conduct, on the face of it these allegations would justify a full investigation to determine whether Maxam International broke the law during the first two years of Russia’s full scale invasion.”

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Maxam has operated in Russia since 1999 through four subsidiaries: the management company Maxam Rusia LLC ((ООО «Максам Русия»), along with three explosives plants — “High-Tech Initiation Systems” JSC (AO “VSI”) in the Samara Region, “Eastern Mining Services” LLC (ООО «ИМС») in the northern Murmansk Region, and YUII-Sibir LLC (ООО «ЮИИ-Сибирь») in Krasnoyarsk Krai in central Siberia. The ultimate owner of those firms was Spain’s MaxamCorp International S.L.

All three production sites continued operating after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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