Germanу indicts key figure from The Insider investigation who supplied machine tools to Russian arms manufacturers

The German Public Prosecutor General's Office has indicted Ulli (Ulrich) Sigloch, a key figure in The Insider's investigation into the supply of European equipment and machinery to Russian weapons manufacturers, published in late September.

According to a statement from the Public Prosecutor General's Office on November 13, Ulrich Sigloch is facing charges of violating multiple sections of the German Foreign Trade Act. In 2015, Sigloch inked three deals with Russian arms manufacturers, agreeing to supply six metalworking machine tools required for mass-producing sniper rifles.

Sigloch used a Swiss firm to supply the machine tools, with the transaction totaling around 2 million euros. One of the contracts with the Russian gunmakers also included machine installation and personnel training, provided by Sigloch's subordinates to the Russians between 2015 and 2016. The investigation also revealed that Sigloch acquired four sniper rifles from his Russian partners, citing “test purposes,” and imported them into Germany. To circumvent the embargo, Sigloch retroactively dated the contract.

Following the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of hostilities in the Donbas, the European Union banned the export of dual-use products and military technology to Russia. However, this did not stop some European entrepreneurs from maintaining their Russian partnerships. According to information obtained by The Insider, European equipment continued to flow to a Russian rifle plant, among other recipients, and when the Swiss Attorney General's Office was alerted to this fact, it did not detect anything suspicious.

On August 24, Der Spiegel reported the arrest of an Ulli S., the CEO of a company based in Baden-Württemberg (the German press was prohibited from disclosing the full names of suspects and defendants). According to the journalists, the arrest had been sanctioned by Germany's Public Prosecutor General on the charges of foreign trade law violations. As Der Spiegel reported, the violations involved the delivery of high-precision machinery worth 2 million euros to Russian weapons manufacturers in 2015 — shipments that were subject to German sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea.

The Insider deduced that only one German CEO met Der Spiegel's description: Ulli (Ulrich) Sigloch, the head of SiTec Präzisionstechnik Handels- und Produktionsgesellschaft mbH, a German company manufacturing and distributing high-precision metalworking machinery. Previously, Sigloch also owned Waffenfabrik Neuhausen AG, a Swiss weapons manufacturer.

Read more in our investigation by following the link.