A Belarusian businessman who arrived in Latvia after the Belarusian opposition protests in 2021 and was granted a temporary residence permit as the head of a prospective start-up company is on trial for violating European Union (EU) sanctions. According to Latvian Television’s “De facto”, aired December 1, Igor Medved, founder of Nordwoc, is ready to plead guilty.
Four years ago, Alexander Lukashenko retained power in the fraudulent presidential elections in Belarus. Mass protests swept the country. Many companies, including in the technology sector, sought to relocate to other countries.
“Many European countries actually threw themselves into competition to attract these companies. At that point, Latvia, of course, which already had the Law on Support for Start-ups in force from 2017, also had this focus,” said Jānis Kovaļevskis, Deputy Director of the Communication and Information Department at the Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA).
The innovative ideas of the companies were evaluated by LIAA, and the Citizenship and Migration Board (PMLP) carried out its own checks.
After evaluating all the proposals, 16 candidates were selected for 2021. Among them, Nordwoc.
Igor Medved received his temporary residence permit in February 2021, when he founded Nordwoc, a company with a registered office in Old Town.
According to Jūlija Baumane, Senior Project Manager at the LIAA’s New Business Support Unit, the company has received export support from the LIAA, participated in an exhibition and applied for a tax credit, which it did not receive.
Latvia’s favor was targeted at companies that were at odds with the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. But according to research by an independent Belarusian research company, it was Igor Medved’s companies that actively supplied various types of equipment and machinery to the state-run institutions in previous years.
Moreover, he has managed to win tenders without any real competition and with significantly more expensive goods when compared to the price on the open market.
“He has supplied high-tech equipment to companies of the Belarusian military-industrial complex. Usually, these were really specific rare machines. He supplied them through fictitious tenders between his own companies. And another sign of Igor Medved’s handwriting is that he has many of these companies. He has more than ten companies in different countries. So it is not easy to trace the extent to which he is connected to them,” Stanislau Ivashkevich, a Belarusian investigative journalist, told LTV.
According to the indictment, Igor Medved did not break the link with Belarus through Nordwoc after moving to Latvia.
Last year, the State Security Service (VDD) opened criminal proceedings on suspicion of circumventing European sanctions by supplying unauthorized goods to Belarus.
Igor Medved has been in detention since March last year. Before the hearing, both of his lawyers called the charges unfounded.
The sentence requested by the prosecutor for Igor Medved is two years’ imprisonment, a fine of €225,000 and confiscation of €30,000 of his property, as well as confiscation of his shares in Nordwoc.
De Facto has information that Medved’s temporary residence permit was revoked by the PMLP two years ago. Statistics show that it is because of the strict controls in the newcomer program that residence permits are often refused.
This year, out of 29 applications, the PMLP refused ten.
“Start-ups, I have to say, are on our radar all the time. Because we think this project is one where it is the easiest to get a residence permit. As we say, paper bears everything and with the help of artificial intelligence, anything can be written,” said Maira Roze, head of the PMLP.
The start-up visa program in Latvia currently has 44 entrepreneurs from Turkey, Iran, Nigeria, India, and other non-EU countries.
Latvia has not considered applicants from Russia for the past two years. However, applications from Belarusian companies continue to be accepted.
The State Security Service confirmed to De Facto that it checks citizens of Belarus and other risk countries who apply for a visa or residence permit in Latvia. Among those subject to checks were entrepreneurs who have moved to Latvia since 2020 due to the unstable situation in Belarus.
