The US Department of Justice charged five Russians and two Venezuelan oil traders with sanctions evasion and money laundering. Among them is the son of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Artem Uss, he has already been arrested.
According to the agency, Uss was arrested in Italy. The indictment also mentions Russians Yuri Orekhov, Svetlana Kuzurgasheva, Timofei Telegin and Sergei Tulyakov. Together with Artem Uss, they are accused of money laundering and smuggling. Orekhov was arrested on October 17 in Germany. Courts in Italy and Germany will decide on the extradition of arrested Russians to the United States.
U.S. prosecutors allege that the Russians tried to gain access to defense technology from American companies, smuggled oil and laundered money for Russian oligarchs and organizations that are subject to sanctions.
The defendants allegedly orchestrated a scheme to sell oil through shell companies and cryptocurrencies and were involved in the purchase of sanctioned dual-use electronics to help the Russian military-industrial complex in its war with Ukraine. Venezuelan oil traders Juan Fernando Serrano Ponce and Juan Carlos Soto were involved in this scheme.
Orekhov and Uss, according to the Ministry of Justice, were co-owners of Nord-Deutsche Industrieanlagenbau GmbH (NDA GmbH). It trades in industrial equipment and commodities and is registered in Hamburg, Germany. Through it, American manufacturers purchased, for example, microprocessors that are used in missile systems and ammunition. All this was supplied to sanctioned Russian companies. These components, according to a statement from the Ministry of Justice, were found in Russian weapons that the Russian army was losing in Ukraine.
Artem Uss is the founder of the Sibugol company, which receives government contracts for the supply of coal. The team of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2019 found luxury real estate worth 1.5 billion rubles from his father, Governor Alexander Uss. Sanctions were imposed against the official in July. Uss, along with the heads of several other regions, was blacklisted by the UK. These persons are completely banned from entering the country, their assets there have been frozen.