The US Department of Justice revealed details of five cases related to the supply of goods prohibited by sanctions.
In two out of the five cases, Russian citizens were involved in violating export restrictions. Russian citizen Denis Postovoy is suspected of violating trade sanctions and exporting military microelectronic components to Russia through a network of companies that he owns or operates in Russia, and Hong Kong. According to the Department of Justice, the companies involved include Sentry, WOWCube HK, JST, Jove, and Vector.
Another Russian citizen, Maksim Teslenko, and Massachusetts resident Samer Bhambhani are accused of smuggling. Bhambhani was arrested on September 9th and released on bail after his first appearance in federal court in Boston. Teslenko remains at large overseas. It is alleged that between 2015 and 2021, Bhambhani and Teslenko conspired to export laser-welding machines from the US to Russia through the Ural Electromechanical Plant (UEMZ) in Yekaterinburg. They falsified export documentation submitted to the US government to hide the fact that the true end-user of the machines was UEMZ, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom.
The third case reported by the US Department of Justice is related to a Chinese citizen, Song Wu. He is charged with fraud using electronic communication and identity theft. Song Wu allegedly participated in a multi-year campaign of targeted phishing by email, during which he created email accounts posing as American researchers and engineers. Then he used these accounts to obtain specialized software used in aerospace engineering.
Gholam Reza Goodarzi is a US and Iranian citizen who is accused of supplying goods prohibited by sanctions. He smuggled parts and components for unmanned aerial vehicles from the US to Iran. Another US and Iranian citizen, Jeffrey Chance Nader, was arrested on August 13th, 2024 based on an indictment in which he was charged with crimes related to the purchase of aviation components manufactured in the United States including components used in military aircraft operated by the Iranian Armed Forces including the F-4 fighter jet.
