Avoiding sanctions, smuggling and money laundering. These are the serious allegations the United States is leveling against Artem Uss, 40, son of Russian Krasnoyarsk Governor Artyom. The manager was arrested by police at Milan Malpensa Airport on Monday. just as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul. As the recipient of an international arrest warrant, he must appear tomorrow for the hearing before Milan’s Court of Appeal, which must decide whether to allow extradition. He faces up to 30 years in prisonwith the Russian authorities shouting a conspiracy instead.
Uss was blocked in the boarding area of Lombard International Airport just before boarding the flight to Turkey. Accompanied by Polaria agents, he was informed arrest warrant and taken to the prison of Busto Arsizio in the province of Varese. The warrant for his arrest issued by the US Department of Justice relates to a series of crimes that have made the affair a case of international concern. On the basis of the 12 charges, the US will also indict compatriots Yury Orekhov, who were also arrested in Germany on Monday, Svetlana Kuzurgasheva, Timofey Telegin and Sergey Tulyakov, and Venezuelan oil traders Juan Fernando Serrano Ponce and Juan Carlos Soto – reports Tass .
According to US investigators, they are involved in “orchestrating a complex scheme to illegally obtain US military technology and Venezuela-sanctioned oil.” you would smuggled millions of barrels of oil and laundered tens of millions of dollars on behalf of the Russian oligarchs through a variety of shell company and cryptocurrency transactions. A real espionage story in which, for the FBI investigators, they would “undermine the security, economic stability and rule of law around the world”.
“I met him and he’s like someone who’s been put in prison, so it’s him,” explains Vinicio Nardo, the lawyer who will act in case of opposition to extradition ask for house arrest pending the completion of extradition proceedings. A panel of the Court of Justice must decide on this application after a further specific hearing. After the paperwork arrives from the US, the Attorney General has one month to formulate his charges and the case must be completed, with or without the green light for the 40-year-old’s extradition, in a maximum of 6 months.
In addition to that of the attorney, Uss He was also visited in prison by some employees of the Russian Consulate General in Milan. “Russia will not go unanswered in the hunt for Russian citizens by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova thundered when asked by Pravda, Moscow’s main daily newspaper. “The cynicism of this situation – he adds – lies in the fact that we are talking about taking the Russians hostage to further use them for US political purposes.” Not even Uss’s father, governor and tycoon, is silent, calling the US allegations against his son “political”.