Some of the equipment was recovered from battlefields in Ukraine, the Justice Department said, and other nuclear proliferation technology was intercepted in Latvia before it could be shipped to Russia. The Justice Department has charged nearly a dozen people in separate cases in New York and Connecticut, including Russian nationals accused of buying sensitive military technology from American companies and laundering tens of millions of dollars for wealthy Russian businessmen. Latvians charged with conspiring to smuggle equipment to Russians and oil brokers for Venezuela accused of working on illegal deals for Venezuela’s state oil company. “As I have said, our investigators and prosecutors will be relentless in their efforts to identify, identify and bring to justice those whose illegal actions undermine the rule of law and allow the Russian regime to continue its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” , said the Attorney General. Merrick Garland said in a statement. Five of the defendants charged in New York are Russian nationals and two have been arrested. Two others are oil brokers for Venezuela. All four defendants in the Connecticut case — three Latvians and one Ukrainian — were taken into custody months ago at the request of US authorities. They are charged with conspiring to smuggle a grinding machine, a high-precision grinding machine, manufactured in Connecticut to Russia. The equipment requires a license for export or re-export to Russia. The criminal charges complement the latest round of sanctions by the Biden administration targeting Russia. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions Wednesday against one of the men charged by the Justice Department, naming Yury Orekhov and two of his companies, Nord-Deutsche Industrieanlagenbau GmbH and Opus Energy Trading LLC, for supplying advanced semiconductors and microprocessors used in fighter aircraft and ballistic and hypersonic missile systems among other military uses. Orekhov and the companies ultimately shipped the materials to Russian end users, including companies designated by various federal agencies, in violation of US export controls. Prosecutors say Orekhov was arrested in Germany. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. The Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control worked in coordination to track down the Russian network. Along with sanctions on members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, the US froze the Russian Central Bank’s funds and imposed aggressive export controls. The latest effort is dedicated to preventing Russia from procuring military technologies. Deputy Finance Minister Wally Adeyemo said in a statement on Wednesday that Russia is increasingly struggling to acquire the technologies it needs to sustain the war “thanks to unprecedented sanctions and export controls imposed by our broad coalition of partners and allies.” ». “We know these efforts are having an immediate impact on the battlefield,” he said, “as Russia’s desperation has led them to turn to inferior suppliers and obsolete equipment.” Information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, presented Friday to the Treasury Department, said Russia has lost more than 6,000 pieces of equipment since the start of the war in late February and is turning to Iran and North Korea for supplies. Russia relies on foreign manufacturing machinery and ongoing banking sanctions have undermined the Kremlin’s ability to obtain financing to import military equipment, ODNI said. —- This version of the story corrects that 11 people, not nine, have been charged since the total includes oil brokers.
