At the request of the United States, 33-year-old Russian Artur Petrov was arrested in Cyprus and faces decades in prison.
Petrov is accused of illegally purchasing American electronics for a Russian company that works for the army. How tells DW, he was arrested on August 26 in Cyprus, the US Department of Justice announced this on August 31. Microelectronics, which the Russian is accused of smuggling, is used in the production of drones, missiles, communications equipment and electronic warfare systems. American law prohibits the supply of such products to the Russian Federation.
According to the US Department of Justice, Petrov, along with two accomplices (Russians, their names are not named), from February 2022 to August 2023, purchased a large amount of electronics from American firms for the Russian Electrocom VPK LLC. As stated on the official website of the company, it supplies products to defense industry enterprises. To hide the final destination of the shipments, the smugglers used front legal entities registered in third countries.
Petrov faces several charges: violation of export control laws, conspiracy to commit fraud using electronic means of communication, conspiracy to launder money. The maximum punishment for each of them is 20 years in prison. The verdict will be issued by an American court. Matthew Axelrod, US Assistant Secretary of Commerce, says:
“Those who bypass our export control restrictions to support Putin’s brutal war machine will be held accountable.”
In December last year, the federal district court for the Eastern District of New York charged five Russian citizens and two American citizens with organizing the smuggling of electronics for the Russian defense industry in circumvention of sanctions. Russian Vadim Konoshchenko (the American side considers him an FSB officer) was twice stopped at the Estonian-Russian border with American-made electronic components and cartridges.
And in February, the German prosecutor’s office raided three firms in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, they were suspected of making transactions worth $15.5 million in violation of sanctions. EU. According to media reports, the companies could supply military electronics to the Russian Federation through Turkey.
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