German authorities have arrested a couple suspected of providing RT and other Russian TV channels to customers via the internet, in violation of EU sanctions.
The bloc banned almost all Russian media in March 2022, calling them a threat to democracy and citing the conflict in Ukraine. EU bans were then applied worldwide by some US-based social media giants, such as YouTube.
“The suspects are a 37-year-old German and his 42-year-old wife of Ukrainian nationality,” the German customs service (Zoll) announced on Friday. They are “said to have offered several sanctioned Russian TV channels to their customers via an IP-TV service since at least the beginning of 2022.”
Police in the city of Karlsruhe raided the couple’s apartment on Thursday, according to the customs statement. They found “extensive technical equipment, written evidence and 40,000 euros ($44,686) in cash,” all of which was seized.
The couple’s service “presumably included well-known channels such as ‘Rossiya 1’ and ‘Russia Today’,” the German customs said.
The District Court in Karlsruhe, a city in Baden-Wurttemberg near the German border with France, has also issued an asset seizure order for approximately €120,000 ($134,000) in “illegal income” from the alleged activity.
Neither of the suspects was identified by name. If convicted, they face at least one year in prison under the Foreign Trade Act. The alleged offense is still under investigation by the customs inspectorate in Stuttgart, which may bring additional charges.
Earlier this month, the US also sanctioned RT, accusing the channel of “functioning as a de facto arm of [Russian] intelligence.” US State Department official Jamie Rubin blamed RT’s reporting for the fact that much of the world has not sided with Ukraine as Washington expected it to.
“We find ways to bypass these sanctions. This is sort of a game of cat and mouse. And it will continue,” RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said in response.
“We’re not going anywhere,” RT said in a message projected on the facade of the US embassy in Moscow this week.
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