Germany carries out raids in sabotage investigation related to former Gazprom unit

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BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors said they carried out raids Wednesday in an investigation of a suspected attempt to disrupt the country's gas supply, connected to an opaque maneuver in 2022 involving what was Russian energy giant Gazprom's German unit.

Federal prosecutors said police searched the premises in Berlin of a suspect and another person who isn't under investigation, along with those of an unidentified company in Frankfurt. They said that there were no arrests.

The suspect, a Russian citizen whose name wasn't released, is being investigated on suspicion of being an accessory to violating investment rules in Germany's foreign trade law and an accessory to attempted anticonstitutional sabotage, prosecutors said in a statement.

A few weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, German officials said the parent company announced that it was withdrawing from the Gazprom Germania unit. They said the buyer ordered its liquidation, which isn't allowed before a purchase has been approved.

Berlin put a German government agency in charge of Gazprom Germania, thwarting the attempted liquidation. The government said the unit was “of paramount significance” to natural gas trade, transport and storage in Germany. It later nationalized the company, now known as Securing Energy for Europe.

Federal prosecutors said they suspect the sale to a Moscow-based company with no link to the industry and the attempted liquidation were meant to disrupt gas supply in Germany, a backer of Ukraine. The man under investigation is suspected of having supported the implementation of the decision to liquidate Gazprom Germania with that aim, they said.

Germany scrambled to reduce its dependence on Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow cut off its remaining gas supplies to Germany months later.

A few weeks after that, undersea explosions damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.