US Charges Belorussian Citizen With Illegally Exporting Aircraft Parts to Russia
The U.S. this week charged a Belorussian citizen with illegally exporting U.S. avionics and aircraft equipment to Russia, including for use by a company on the Entity List.
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Yana Leonova, who was extradited from France on Nov. 3, was charged with conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act, to commit smuggling, to commit money laundering, and to defraud the U.S., DOJ said.
The agency said Leonova worked with others in the U.S. to try to ship the equipment to Russia following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The equipment was set to be used on a private aircraft operated by Leonova’s former employer, a company on the Entity List, DOJ said.
Leonova allegedly bought the aircraft parts from U.S.-based distributors and used companies located in Armenia, the Maldives and elsewhere to transship them to Russia without the required Bureau of Industry and Security license. Leonova and others "repeatedly concealed and misstated" the actual end users and destinations of the parts, DOJ said, including by submitting false information on export documents. She also caused "payments in U.S. dollars to be transmitted from foreign bank accounts to bank accounts in the United States."
Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, said the agency has made it a "top priority to keep U.S. technology from making its way into our adversaries’ hands, and we ask all our private sector partners to remember the critical role they play in safeguarding our national security by reporting violations."