In 1915, Hanecki moved via Switzerland to Copenhagen, where he formed a commercial company, Handels-og Eksportkompagniet A/S (Trade and Export Co. Ltd.), with himself as chairman of the board of directors, and his wife as the book keeper. Half the start-up capital was provided by the wealthy ex-revolutionary Alexander Parvus, the other half by a mysterious individual named Georg Sklarz, who was probably a German agent. The company traded in thermometers, syringes and drugs and German-made office equipment. In January 1917, Hanecki was hauled before a judge for exporting medical goods to Sweden without a licence, fined heavily, expelled from Denmark, and put on a ferry to Stockholm, where he seems to have had no difficulty re-establishing his wholesale business, trading in contraceptives. After the February revolution, he was active in helping exiled Russian revolutionaries to return to Russia - most notably Lenin, whom he supplied with money for the journey, and greeted when his party arrived in Sweden after crossing Germany in a 'sealed train' in April 1917. Lenin appointed him a member of the three man Stockholm bureau of the Bolshevik party, with Karl Radek and Vatslav Vorovsky.