Virginia Freight Forwarder, 2 Executives Charged With Illegally Sending Goods to Russia
A Virginia-based freight consolidation and forwarding business and two of its executives were charged with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act after they allegedly exported goods and technology to Russia by transshipping them through Turkey, Finland and Kazakhstan, DOJ announced Nov. 4.
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From March 2022 to June 2023, Eleview International, its owner-CEO Oleg Nayandin of Fairfax, Virginia, and Vitaliy Borisenko of Vienna, Virginia, allegedly operated an e-commerce website that let Russian buyers order U.S. goods and technology directly from U.S. retailers, who shipped the goods to Eleview's warehouse in Virginia. The packages were consolidated and then shipped to Russia, often through intermediary freight forwarders, which sent the goods for a fee.
DOJ said they were involved in three schemes to skirt export controls on Russia involving false end users in Turkey, Finland and Kazakhstan.
The first scheme saw the company and the executives send about $1.48 million of telecommunications equipment to a fake end user in Turkey, knowing the equipment was meant for a "Russian telecommunications company that supplied the Russian government," including Russian intelligence services, DOJ alleged. The U.S. said the goods had military applications.
Under the Finland scheme, Eleview, through Nayandin and Borisenko, allegedly sent around $3.45 million worth of goods, including "high priority" items Commerce has identified as significant to Russian weaponry, to a fake end user in Finland. DOJ said the items include "the same type of electronic component found on Russian 'suicide' drones used to destroy Ukrainian tanks and jets."
DOJ said the end user in Finland neither bought nor sold goods and that the defendants put a Russian postal service tracking number on each shipment.
In the Kazakhstan-related scheme, the company and the executives allegedly sent around $1.47 million worth of goods to a company in Kazakhstan that "advertises its ability to deliver goods to Russia," DOJ said. The goods allegedly included controlled dual-use items.
The executives each face a maximum of 20 years in prison.