US authorities on Wednesday indicted five Russians who allegedly shipped US electronic components to Russian arms makers, some of which have been found on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Separately, three Latvians and a Ukrainian were charged with attempting to send a US-made high-precision industrial grinder to Russia that the US Department of Justice said could be used by arms makers or in a nuclear weapons program.
The department said the two schemes involved front companies in multiple countries, including in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Germany, and were designed to evade US and global sanctions on Russia.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The first scheme involved buying sensitive technologies from US manufacturers such as advanced semiconductors and microprocessors that are used in fighter aircraft, missile systems, smart munitions, radar and satellites.
The department said Dubai-based Russian Yury Orekhov, Artem Uss, the son of a regional Russian governor, and three others used a Hamburg, Germany-based firm for the operation, shipping some of the technology to Russian defense companies that are under US sanctions.
It said, for example, that Orekhov had traveled to the US in 2019 to source parts that were used in Russia’s Sukhoi fighter aircraft.
“Some of the types of electronic components obtained through the criminal scheme have been found in Russian weapons platforms seized on the battlefield in Ukraine,” the department said.
At the same time, Orekhov, his Russian parters and two Venezuelan oil brokers who were also indicted, used the German firm as a front to ship “hundreds of millions of barrels of oil” from Venezuela to Russia and China, contravening global sanctions, it said.
Payments were routed through shell companies, a bank in the UAE, and via cash drops and cryptocurrency trades, the department said.
The five Russians and two traders are charged with conspiracy to defraud the US, sanctions breaches, fraud and money laundering.
Orekhov and Uss were arrested on Monday in Germany and Italy respectively, and the US would seek their extradition, the department said.
In the second scheme, the four arranged the purchase of a jig grinder made in the US state of Connecticut ostensibly for the European market, but sought to ship it to Russia. The grinder was intercepted by Latvian authorities.
“These defendants attempted to smuggle a high-precision export-controlled item to Russia where it could have been used in nuclear proliferation and Russian defense programs,” US Attorney Vanessa Roberts Avery said.
The three Latvians were arrested on Tuesday while the Ukrainian national was arrested in June in Estonia.
They are all charged with conspiracy to defraud the US, smuggling and money laundering. The department is also seeking their extradition.
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