If you're a '90s Kid missing the thrill of the Cold War you mostly missed, don't fret, America 2016 has got you covered. We've got Russia potentially hacking the election, we've got people just dropping strange banners of a Russian despot off of our finest landmarks, and according to the U.S. District Attorney's office, three men have just been arrested for illegally selling military technology to Russia. The Cold War is back, baby!
The U.S. District Attorney's office announced that Alexey Barysheff, a 36-year-old naturalized citizen who hails from Brooklyn, conspired with two Russian nationals, Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Karpenko, 33, and Alexey Krutilin, 27, to go around a government licensing system to export military-grade microelectronics to Russia. In a press release, the U.S. Attorney's office said that the men violated a Commerce Department regulation that puts limits on the kinds of technology that can be exported from America if it poses "significant contribution to the military potential and weapons proliferation of other nations."
According to the complaint filed by the government, the three men sent "digital-to-analog converters and integrated circuits, which are frequently used in a wide range of military systems, including radar and surveillance systems, missile guidance systems, and satellites" to contacts in Russia. The sales were allegedly made possible through the use of two front companies set up by in Brooklyn by Barysheff, BKLN Spectra, Inc. and UIP Techno Corp.
Barysheff, Aleksandrovich Karpenko and Krutilin allegedly represented themselves as employees of Spectra and UIP, and didn't tell American manufacturers of the electronics they were buying that they were actually exporters. The electronics were first shipped to Finland before being sent to Russia, and the conspirators allegedly lied to the Department of Commerce about the true nature of the objects being shipped.
If convicted, the three men face 25 years in prison.
