The Russian sanctions law came into effect in March 2022 after Moscow began its war on Ukraine.
Photo: 123RF
A handful of investigations have taken place into suspicions of Russian sanctions being breached, but most reports have been looked at then dropped.
Police did not say what outcome their investigations had.
New figures released to RNZ show the public has made very few reports to police – just 43 in total since the Russian sanctions law came into effect in March 2022 after Moscow began its war on Ukraine.
Another 320 or so reports have come in from the 5000 companies and organisations that are “duty holders”, like banks, real estate agents and lawyers, and required to report suspicions.
“All reports have been processed and assessed by the New Zealand Financial Intelligence Unit (NZFIU),” police said.
“All reports are given ‘high priority’ status when received by the NZFIU.”
Police set up a Russia Sanctions report line as part of their non-emergency 105 system to back up the law.
Public reports peaked at 12 in 2022.
Since then, just five of the 43 have been investigated further by police, three in 2022 and two in 2025, “but no evidence of any sanctions breach so no further action taken”. A couple were referred to MFAT “for noting”.
The duty holder reports resulted in four investigations and a couple of cases of monitoring around previous sanctions.
Police referred reports about two companies to Customs for “possible trade-based money laundering investigations”. RNZ has approached Customs for an update.
They did not categorise the reports or investigations in any way, they said.
Because the Russia Sanctions 105 line is free to text, police said members of the public sometimes used it “to report things that they cannot report anywhere else on 105, and which are often unrelated to Russian Sanctions”.
By last October New Zealand had imposed sanctions on more than 1900 individuals – including all 620 members of the Russian parliament – entities, and vessels, alongside a range of trade measures.
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