Estonian ammunition scandal figures lead Latvian factory project

Two people who were responsible for disputed ammunition procurements in Estonia are now leading a multimillion-euro artillery shell factory project in Latvia, LSM’s investigative programme de facto reports.

Estonia paid the Italian company Datasel nearly 60 million euros in advance for ammunition, but later found that the explosives in the delivered artillery shells were of poor quality. Datasel has rejected the Estonian allegations.

Seven contracts have been terminated, with five cases reaching court or arbitration. Estonia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has concluded that there are grounds to begin criminal proceedings. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is also investigating possible procurement violations, while a European Commission investigative group is due to visit Estonia at the end of September.

The people responsible for the procurements have since become executives at Wolfram Europa, the company developing a combat ammunition factory in Latvia. Wolfram Europa says the events in Estonia will not affect or delay development of the planned production complex in Latvia.

During the first years of the war, Ukraine faced an acute shortage of artillery shells, and Estonia took responsibility for helping to procure them. European funding was used for the purchases, including revenue generated by frozen assets of the Central Bank of Russia.

European factories were unable to produce enough ammunition, so suppliers were sought wherever they could be found. “It was a crazy time. Our people travelled to Kenya and East Asian countries, looking for any place, any warehouse where ammunition could be bought,” Eesti Ekspress investigative journalist Madis Hindre said.

One supplier was Datasel, a small Italian company that had previously worked in electronics and software. In March 2024, around the time contacts with Estonia were being established, the company was bought by India’s Neco Defence Munitions, which also had no previous experience producing large-calibre artillery shells.

Later, unusual details emerged. For example, images of shells taken from other websites were used in Datasel’s offer, including one image taken from the cover of a computer game.