The Department of Justice stated on Wednesday that five Russian nationals and two oil dealers had been prosecuted in connection with an alleged plan to launder money and circumvent international sanctions.
Svetlana Kuzurgasheva (also known as "Lana Neumann"), Timofey Telegin, Sergey Tulyakov, Yury Orekhov, and Artem Uss are accused of seeking to get around sanctions against Venezuelan oil producers and gaining technology for the U.S. F-22 air superiority aircraft. Although a news release from the Department of Justice did not identify the amounts or kinds of cryptocurrencies utilized, the defendants are accused of using shell companies and cryptocurrencies to launder the money used in this scam.
A later-released indictment claimed the defendants used the Tether stablecoin to conduct a transaction. According to the press release, defendants Orekhov and Uss were detained on Monday. Task Force KleptoCapture, a DOJ operation focused on economic penalties and retaliation against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, brought the allegations.
Based on a statement from the Eastern District of New York's U.S. Attorney, Breon Peace, the defendants were criminal enablers for oligarchs, orchestrating a complex scheme to unlawfully obtain U.S. military technology and Venezuelan-sanctioned oil through a myriad of transactions involving shell companies and cryptocurrency."
Juan Fernando Serrano Ponce and Juan Carlos Soto, who is accused of arranging illegal oil deals for Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., a state-owned oil corporation in Venezuela, are also charged.
The Task Force KleptoCapture director, Andrew Adams, reinforced the notion in his own statement. "Stamping out evasion of export controls on military technology is among the Task Force's highest priorities, and today's arrests reflect the power of those controls when enforced by a dedicated team of expert agents and devoted foreign partners," he said.
In reaction to Russia's invasion, the DOJ launched KleptoCapture in March, saying the group would concentrate on economic sanctions against oligarchs. Crypto tracking, according to the corporation, would be one of the group's current main focuses.
In a separate case, federal prosecutors in Connecticut announced the indictment of three Europeans on allegations of breaking U.S. export regulations while attempting to bring a "jig grinder" to Russia via ship.
At the request of U.S. prosecutors, European authorities arrested Eriks Mamonovs, 33, and Vadims Ananics, 46, both Latvian citizens, and Stanislav Romanyuk, 37, a Ukrainian citizen and resident of Estonia, and they are awaiting extradition to the United States, according to the Justice Department.
