 "Herickx")
The Dutchman who gets Nike and Lego into wartime Russia's stores
Nike stopped selling its sportswear to Russia soon after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine over two years ago. But that hasn’t stopped footballstore.ru, an online sports retailer owned by Russia’s Zenit soccer club.
Among the dozens of Nikebranded items the site offers are the US sportswear maker’s Phantom GT2 Elite soccer boots, for 29,999 roubles.
The man who got these shoes to Russia is Wijnand Herinckx, a 40-year-old Dutch citizen who lives in Moscow. Since the conflict began, Herinckx has built a thriving business that provides Russian consumers with Western goods whose makers have pulled out of Russia.
Nike does not want their products to be shipped to Russia, Herinckx say. But he added: They are also not telling us not to do it.
Both Nike and Lego told Reuters they have not authorized Herinckx’s imports of their goods to Russia.
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Reuters examined how his business obtains branded goods including Nike and Lego: It uses intermediaries with no apparent connection to Russia as buyers, then ships the goods to Russia, often via Turkey, and finally delivers them to retailers in Russia.
There are at least dozens of firms like Herinckx’s employing grey-market methods to get Western goods to Russia.
Western governments’ restrictions have mostly focused on industrial products that can be used to build weapons for Russia’s war machine. Such products are usually subject to US and European Union sanctions.
Herinckx said his focus is on consumer goods not covered by sanctions. Reuters found no evidence that his firm was violating sanctions.
But companies like Herinckx’s are indirectly helping the Russian economy: Consumers can still buy foreign goods they’ve grown used to since the collapse of communism more than a generation ago. Customs data showed, for example, the value of Nike products imported to Russia plummeted 81 per cent in 2022 to $21 million, but rebounded in 2023 to at least $74 million.
The sportswear giant said it did not supply Herinckx’s firm or any associated businesses.
“We no longer have any Nikeowned physical or digital retail operations in Russia,” it said in a statement. It also said it has a dedicated team to investigate unauthorized distribution channels. A spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about how the products were reaching Russia.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
