Vadim Yermolenko, 43, holds both U.S. and Russian citizenship, which perhaps made it easier for him to ship sanctions-busting export-controlled electronic components from here to there. He's just pleaded guilty to bank fraud, conspiracy to defraut the U.S. and to violating the Export Control Reform Act. A co-conspirator, Alexey Brayman, is also awaiting sentencing and defendants Boris Livshits, Alexey Ippolitov, Svetlana Skvortsova, and Yevgeniy Grinin "remain at large," reports the Department of Justice.
"To facilitate the Russian war machine, the defendant played a critical role in exporting sensitive, dual-use technologies to Russia, facilitating shipping and the movement of millions of dollars through U.S. financial institutions," said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. "This plea highlights my Office and our law enforcement partners continued commitment to use all tools available to prosecute those who unlawfully procure U.S. technology to send to Russia."
The DoJ's press release doesn't detail anything about the equipment beyond this: "highly sensitive, export controlled electronic components, some of which can be used in the development of nuclear and hypersonic weapons, quantum computing and other military applications." The term "dual use" means consumers can buy it. So this smells a lot more like "smuggling Nvidia 4090s" than anything spectacularly sensitive. The only specific item detailed indicates the worst thing they want to tell us about:
In one instance, money from one of the defendant's accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets, which were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia.
"Up to 30 years in prison," reports AOL.
