In January 2024, Russia purchased cash dollars worth 29 million 210 thousand dollars from the African state of Rwanda. This is evidenced by closed data from Russian customs statistics, which Verstka has reviewed.
The shipment included 100-dollar banknotes. According to the customs declaration, their total weight was 292.1 kg. The cash was purchased from the Rwandan Ministry of Defense, and the buyer on the Russian side was Rosoboronexport, the only state intermediary for the trade in military products.
After the start of the war, due to sanctions, Russia began importing some of the dollar banknotes through Turkey and the UAE, Reuters reported. This was done by Aero-Trade, a company that operates duty-free shops at airports in five Russian cities, including Moscow’s Vnukovo, the Sistema project wrote. The company turned out to be connected with the owner of other large duty-free chains, Araz Mehdiyev, who is also the son-in-law of Ilgam Ragimov, a classmate of Vladimir Putin.
The rest of the cash deliveries carried out by Aero-Trade did not indicate the country of departure. This was probably possible due to the type of business of the company itself – Aero-Trade described the received currency in declarations as “revenue for on-board trade” or “exchange for on-board trade”, according to customs data.
Aero-Trade was engaged in importing cash throughout 2023 up until January 18, 2024 – on that day the company processed the last two deliveries of banknotes equivalent to 20 million dollars and 20 million euros, according to customs data reviewed by Verstka. This happened a month after the United States threatened fines for institutions helping Russia circumvent sanctions.
Five days later, on January 23, Rosoboronexport purchased cash from Rwanda. Since then, according to classified customs statistics, dollar banknotes have not been imported into Russia until at least April 30.
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