Used cars from US ending up in Russia via Georgia
The small European country of Georgia has become a multi-billion-dollar hub for vehicles with many used cars from the US arriving there. Many of those cars are appearing over the border in Russia.
Rustavi, an industrial town a stone’s throw away from the capital of Tblisi, is filled with open air car parks holding thousands of vehicles up for sale in an area bigger than 40 football pitches. All sorts of old cars, including Mercedes, Porsches, Jaguars, Toyotas, and even Teslas are ending up here.
One large carpark is owned by Caucasus Auto Import (CAI), a firm that buys cars from auctions in America. Some of the cars have been damaged and are written-off by American insurers, known as “salvage title” in the US.
A “team of experts” according to CAI, will pick up the car in person before arranging for them to be exported by a container ship, 10,000km or 6,000 miles to a port Georgia’s coastline in the Black Sea. The cars will be fixed by mechanics in the country.
“Our company has contributed a lot to the renewal of the Georgian fleet of cars,” says David Gulashvili, CAI’s deputy chief executive. “When we started our business in 2004, Georgian automotive infrastructure was totally Soviet Union produced, like [Soviet brands] Lada and Vaz.” The company of 600 employees, he added, is responding to “a lot of demand for Western-produced vehicles.”
Georgia was a hub for second-hand American and European cars to enter into Russia. But following the invasion of Ukraine, that has stopped due to western sanctions against Moscow. Georgian officials have denied that their country is complicit in helping Russia evade trade embargos. But an investigation from Georgia media outlet Ifacti has fund a number of loopholes being exploited by car dealers either side of the border.
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