Spanish prosecutor closes investigation into major manufacturer Maxam, whose Russian plants continue producing explosives despite EU ban

Spain’s public prosecutor has closed a pretrial investigation into MaxamCorp International S.L. that was opened after a report by The Insider exposed the company’s Russian factories, which continue to produce explosives despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian antiwar activists living in Spain filed a complaint that prompted the probe in June. Three months later, the prosecutor at Spain’s National Court dropped the investigation, despite the factories not halting their operations.

Complaint from Rusos Libres and the prosecutor’s response

On May 21, The Insider published its investigation into Maxam’s operations in Russia. Soon after, La Asociación de Rusos Libres, a group of Russian antiwar activists in Spain, filed a complaint with Spain’s public prosecutor at the National Court (Fiscalía de la Audiencia Nacional) seeking a criminal probe. On June 26, by order of the attorney general, a pretrial inquiry was opened to examine potential legal breaches.

Investigative work was assigned to Spain’s Comisaría General de Información, which issued an official report in September. Relying on that report, on Sept. 19 Chief Prosecutor Jesús Alonso Cristóbal ordered the case closed, saying there were no legal grounds to bring criminal charges.

In the decision declining to press charges — a copy of which The Insider reviewed — the prosecutor, without citing specific sources, said Maxam did not export explosive substances to Russia in 2024-2025 and that in 2024 the company lost control of its Russian subsidiaries.

The Insider asked an independent sanctions-compliance lawyer to comment on the prosecutor’s ruling. Alex Prezanti, co-executive director of the nonprofit State Capture Accountability Project (SCAP), said the prosecutor examined the evidence selectively:

“In his decision to close the investigation against Maxam International, the Spanish prosecutor appears to have only examined events in 2024-2025 — once Maxam had lost control of its Russian subsidiaries. However, the complaint and the Insider's reporting also allege that Maxam International provided its Russian subsidiaries with materials and intellectual property for the production of explosives between 2022 and 2023.

The reporting also alleges that in 2023, Maxam appears to have accepted dividends on profits accrued by its subsidiaries in Russia from a direct supplier to the Russian military industrial complex. It is therefore unfortunate, in my opinion, that the Spanish prosecutor omitted the events of 2022-2023 from his examination. Whilst I have not seen enough evidence to conclude whether there was criminal conduct, on the face of it these allegations would justify a full investigation to determine whether Maxam International broke the law during the first two years of Russia's full scale invasion.”

How Maxam operated in Russia

Spanish company Maxam is one of the world’s largest explosives manufacturers, with turnover exceeding €1 billion in 2024. The holding’s majority owner is U.S. private equity firm Rhône Capital.

Maxam has operated in Russia since 1999 through four subsidiaries: the management company Maxam Rusia LLC ((ООО «Максам Русия»), along with three explosives plants — “High-Tech Initiation Systems” JSC (AO “VSI”) in the Samara Region, “Eastern Mining Services” LLC (ООО «ИМС») in the northern Murmansk Region, and YUII-Sibir LLC (ООО «ЮИИ-Сибирь») in Krasnoyarsk Krai in central Siberia. The ultimate owner of those firms was Spain’s MaxamCorp International S.L.

All three production sites continued operating after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the substances they produce are not directly used in munitions, they are part of supply chains linked to weapons production. For example, the compound “Ryoflex,” made by OOO YUII-Siberia, is used by the Gorevsky GOK (Mining and Processing Plant) to extract lead and zinc ores. Lead is in turn used to make bullets and batteries, while zinc is used for galvanizing steel and producing alloys for defense equipment. The total revenue of Maxam’s Russian units over the three years of war exceeded 11.46 billion rubles (€118.5 million).

In 2024, Maxam’s plant in Samara became the center of a corporate conflict with its former Russian business partner. The original owner of JSC VSI was the Russian company Promsintez, which sold its shares to Maxam in 2005-2006 but attempted to buy them back in 2023. Those negotiations appear to have failed, and the Russian side turned to the government’s Investigative Committee. In November 2023, investigators opened a criminal case on charges of fraud (Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code) and the transfer of funds abroad using falsified documents (Article 193.1). As a result, the Spanish company formally remained the legal owner, but since February 2024, Promsintez has exercised the rights of sole shareholder; in March 2024, it appointed a new general director. The other two plants — in Murmansk and Krasnoyarsk — as well as the management company, remained under Maxam’s ownership and control.

How Maxam maintains ties with its Russian subsidiaries

Independent ratings agency EthiFinance Ratings wrote in its 2024 report that Maxam “has four subsidiaries in Russia dedicated exclusively to the civil explosives business, which operate independently, sourcing locally and serving local customers.”

However, evidence cited in The Insider’s investigation which Spain’s prosecutors declined to consider points to the direct involvement of the Spanish parent company in Russian production. One example is a patent application. On April 24, 2023, Maxam Rusia filed to register intellectual property for an industrial mixer used to manufacture explosives. The listed inventors were two MaxamCorp managers in Spain, Raquel Vivanco González and Fernando Beitia Gómez Segura.

Aside from transferring technical expertise, Maxam was also able to directly profit from its Russian operations during the war. According to filings from YUII-Sibir, in 2023 the Krasnoyarsk subsidiary paid 40 million rubles (just over €413,500) in dividends to its owner, MaxamCorp International S.A.

At the same time, it is likely that the main mechanism for payments to the parent company was not direct dividend payments, but the assignment of debt claims for supplies to Russian buyers. The 2023 financial statements of YUI-Sibir show that in March of that year, MaxamCorp International, S.L. approved a transaction for the assignment of claims between its subsidiary and EuroChem, a large producer of nitrogen fertilizers that also works with defense plants. As part of this deal, YUII-Sibir, which supplied explosives to EuroChem, transferred the right to claim payment for the goods supplied to its parent company. As a result, EuroChem had to pay 862.8 million rubles (€8.9 million) directly to Maxam Corp International, which in turn became a debtor to YUII-Sibir.

The Spanish company obtained the right to claim €10.4 million (at the Central Bank exchange rate on the date of the transaction) from EuroChem for explosives supplied to it, and the Russian subsidiary YUII-Sibir created a provision for doubtful debts for an identical amount of 862.8 million rubles. This wording is used in financial statements when a company does not expect to repay a debt and plans to write it off. This scheme was probably used to circumvent the Russian authorities' restrictions on dividend payments to the Spanish beneficiaries.

How the scheme backfired against the Spanish owners

The most recent proof that MaxamCorp International S.L. continues to hold ownership of two Russian plants and their management company came in case A42-8917-2024. The Murmansk Regional Arbitration Court issued an initial ruling in May 2025, followed by the 13th Arbitration Appellate Court in St. Petersburg in September.

In that case, the Spanish company itself was the plaintiff. Maxam alleged that its former financial director at Maxam Rusia, A.Kh. Mikaelyan, signed two debt assignment contracts shortly before leaving the company. Under those contracts, Maxam’s Murmansk subsidiary, IMS, transferred its claim over MaxamCorp International S.L. to another subsidiary — VSI. But VSI was no longer under Maxam’s control. In early 2024, it had been taken over by Promsintez, the former partner.

That left Maxam’s Russian rivals holding a €2.435 million claim against the Spanish parent. Maxam’s lawyers tried to challenge the transaction but lost both in Murmansk and on appeal in St. Petersburg.

The ruling in case A42-8917/2024, published on Sept. 15, 2025, directly contradicts the Spanish prosecutor’s conclusions. The 12-page judgment describes in detail the ongoing operational and legal ties between MaxamCorp International S.L. and its Russian subsidiary IMS.

MaxamCorp International S.L. explicitly refers to LLC IMS as its Russian subsidiary and stated that the contract signed with JSC VSI without the parent company’s approval was unauthorized. In its appeal, MaxamCorp argued that “the court of first instance failed to take into account the intra-group nature of the debt, and that assigning it to a third party outside the group led to significant negative consequences for the debtor. This circumstance confirms that the transaction caused harm to MaxamCorp International S.L.”

If the financial reports of Maxam’s Russian subsidiaries and the position outlined by its lawyers are accurate, a reasonable conclusion can be drawn: while the Spanish corporation used debt assignment mechanisms to extract dividends from Russia, a financial director familiar with the scheme turned this process against the legal owner, diverting profits to the company’s corporate rival instead.