- Russians used German companies to ship items – prosecutors
- Some components found on the battlefield of Ukraine – prosecutors
- German companies also traded with Venezuelan oil prosecutors
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (Portal) – U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday charged five Russian nationals with evading sanctions and other violations related to shipping military technology purchased by U.S. manufacturers to Russian buyers, some of whom are on the Battlefield in Ukraine landed.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said the electronic components purchased by Russian citizens Yury Orekhov and Svetlana Kuzurgasheva included semiconductors, radars and satellites. Some of the electronics procured under the program were found in Russian weapons platforms seized in Ukraine, prosecutors said.
They used a German company to supply the military technologies as well as Venezuelan oil to Russian buyers, prosecutors said.
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Orekhov was arrested in Germany on Monday. Another Russian accused in the case, Artem Uss, was arrested in Italy. The United States is seeking his extradition, prosecutors said. Portal could not immediately reach any of the defendants for comment.
“We will continue to investigate, disrupt and prosecute those who are fueling Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, evading sanctions and perpetuating the informal economy of transnational money laundering,” Breon Peace, Brooklyn’s top attorney general, said in a statement.
Also on Wednesday, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Orekhov and two companies he controls, Nord-Deutsche Industrieanlagenbau GmbH, also known as NDA, and Opus Energy Trading LLC. The Treasury Department described Orekhov as a procurement agent and said some of the shipments of military and sensitive dual-use technologies to Russian users violated US export controls.
The US-derived technologies can be used in fighter jets, ballistic and hypersonic missile systems, smart munitions and other military applications, the Treasury Department said.
The indictments and sanctions come as Washington seeks to expand sanctions on Russia and crack down on tax evasion to pressure the Kremlin to halt its invasion of Ukraine.
At a first such meeting last week with officials from 32 countries and the United States, Washington warned it could impose sanctions on individuals, countries and companies that supply Russia with ammunition or support its military-industrial complex.
“We know these efforts have a direct impact on the battlefield, as Russia’s desperation has led it to turn to substandard suppliers and outdated equipment,” Deputy Finance Minister Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.
Prosecutors said Orekhov and the US owned the NDA and used it as an excuse to buy the technologies and supply them to Russian end users, including sanctioned companies controlled by Timofey Telegin and Sergey Tulyakov, two of the other Russian nationals, who were charged on Wednesday.
The defendants used bogus companies and provided false information to US banks that processed tens of millions of dollars worth of transactions in violation of sanctions, prosecutors said. The defendants also used cryptocurrency for the transactions and to launder the proceeds, prosecutors said.
Separately, federal prosecutors in Connecticut on Wednesday charged three people with violating U.S. export controls by attempting to ship to Russia a computer-controlled grinding machine known as a “jig grinder,” which can be used in nuclear proliferation and defense programs.
The people – all citizens of Latvia or Ukraine – were arrested by Latvian or Estonian authorities at the request of the United States, prosecutors said.
VENEZUELAN OIL
Orekhov and Uss also used NDA to ship millions of barrels worth of oil from Venezuela to buyers in Russia and China, and worked with two other defendants, Juan Fernando Serrano and Juan Carlos Soto, to settle deals with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA to mediate The United States imposed sanctions in 2019.
According to the indictment released on Wednesday, Orekhov and Uss “repeatedly” bought oil from PDVSA and supplied it to a listed Russian aluminum company controlled by a Russian billionaire industrialist.
Without naming the company, the indictment said it was under U.S. sanctions from April 6, 2018 to January 27, 2019 — which matches dates when Russian aluminum company Rusal (RUAL.MM) sanctioned became. Rusal was founded by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, himself accused of violating sanctions by the US.
Rusal does not buy Venezuelan oil or other sanctioned products and operates in full compliance with international sanctions law, the company told Portal.
A lawyer for Deripaska did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Neither the PDVSA nor the Venezuelan Ministry of Information immediately responded to requests for comment.
After the first round of US sanctions against PDVSA, Russia’s Rosneft emerged as a major intermediary for Venezuelan crude. After Washington sanctioned Rosneft subsidiaries for their dealings with PDVSA, dozens of firms with no track record in oil trading have brokered the sale of Venezuelan oil to Chinese buyers.
A Portal investigation revealed that many of them were registered as websites in Russia.
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Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington Additional reporting by Vivian Sequera in Caracas Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Alistair Bell and Josie Kao
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Luca Cohen